100 years
by Ardra
Summary: When a couple of old faces rear their ugly heads again, the ex-pilots find themselves agreeing to something that would take them on a whole new adventure. 1x2, 3x4, other pairings pending, angsts, yaoi, lemon
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Okay, this is my first fan fiction on here. Please, feel free to review, comment, anything you wish. More will be coming once I get them betaed.

Okay, the story behind this thing... myself and a couple friends of mine were sitting around talking about Gundam Wing my freshman year, I am now a Senior, and we began to plot, and plan and then it mutated. When my friends laughted it off, as if they were joking about this plot, I decided to take matters into my own hands and began to write this myself. So, here it is.

Disclaimer: I do not own GW, or the characters. I wish I did because I would make such wonderful show with them...

Chapter 1

In a small apartment on Earth, away from most of the big cities or anywhere else you would expect to find those who were labeled as rebels during the war, were two former Gundam pilots, Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell. One was at the vidphone in the corner of the apartment while the other lounged on the couch. Big hint as to who was on the couch?

You really need one?

/It's been a year and we still can't fit in. No one will hire Heero because of who he is, and no one will hire me for the same reason and my past. This wasn't what we faught for/ Duo thought miserably, looking over at Heero, who looked like he was doing his best to keep from putting his fist into the screen.

It was like this all the time. Heero had plenty of money stored away from when OZ accounts were up, but that wasn't what the job was really for. Duo could tell the Japanese male was growing bored of the life that consisted of just sitting around the apartment all day. Not when he was so used to always doing something—hacking, repairing, anything. Talking to Quatre Winner earlier, another pilot, Duo began to wonder if he and Heero were the only ones with the boredom problem.

Duo almost jumped out of his skin when Heero slammed his fist down on the desk, almost splintering the wood and making the old wood desk groan under the strain. The longhaired male sighed, got up, walked over to the other and put his arms around him, hoping to whatever higher power was up there that Heero wouldn't shove him away in anger like he did a few times before.

A sigh of relief came from the ex-Deathscythe pilot as Heero leaned back into his embrace and glared daggers at the screen.

"You could always bodygaurd Relena," Duo said as he leaned forward a bit, his braid slipping over his shoulder and plopping in Heero's lap, "She would enjoythat."

"You wouldn't," Heero muttered almost to himself as he took up Duo's braid and studied the colors in it almost facinatedly.

Duo smiled and put his hand over Heero's, stilling his staring, "I'll live. Besides, it'll keep you from putting holes in the walls that we have to explain to the landlord."

Heero scoffed. He looked down at the hand over his and sighed once more, "No. She's too much like the war."

That was another thing. Heero had plenty of job offers from Preventers, but that was the one thing he wouldn't join, Duo either, because they were basically glorified soldiers. Something the both of them were trying to bury deep in the graveyards of their minds with the rest of the people and loved ones they've had to bury back there.

"So am I," Duo pointed out.

Heero looked over at him, something flashing in his eyes before he pulled Duo into his lap and wrapped his arms around his slim waste, "Not like she is."

Duo smiled, knowing he wasn't going to win this fight. Heero didn't want to go, as plain as that, but didn't want to sound like he despised Relena. He probably did, but never said it out loud.

"Pull up my email account. I'm expecting a weird greeting card from Quatre, since it's almost the end of the month."

Heero gave a snort as he did as he was told. Once the email came up, the two saw that there were two things in the box. One was, indeed, from Quatre, and the other was from—

"G?! What the hell?!" Duo almost screeched, half twisted in Heero's lap top look at the screen.

"Duo, I need that ear," Heero muttered as he pulled the letter up on the screen.

_02_

_Yes, we are alive. Let's get over than initial shock right now and move on. J and I, yes he's alive too, have been tinkering for some time with a new project of ours that we want to get up and running. Being as I'm the one that taught you, I'm sure that you know what cryogenic sleep is._

_J and I have been working on a machine for this for a couple years and now and recently have been able to finally complete them. We want you and the rest of the pilots to come to L2 to talk about doing this. After all, you all have no other use other than fighting, so why not put you to sleep until we need you to fight again, no?_

_G_

"What?! That bastard! He thinks that we're just going to pack up and go running to him?!" Duo asked, looking at him, frowning.

"You're going to go," Heero said, stating rather than asking.

"NO! I'm not going to go. He's supposed to be dead. Along with the other idiots," Duo growled.

"Which is why you should go. See if it's an imposter."

"Heero..." Duo sighed, laying his head on his shoulder. "I don't want to go. Even if they are imposters, who cares? They can't do anything to us, even if they meant to. We have nothing to hide, so what in the hell is the point?"

"I'll go with you."

"It said to bring you and the others, of course you would have to come with me, stupid," Duo growled at him, jumping when the other's arms went around his waist.

"That's why I'll go with you," Heero said, a smirk spreading across his face.

"Bastard..." Duo growled from where he was laying, feeling comfortable against the other.

"I'll call the others."

"What?! No, Heero!"

"Why not? I said I would go."

"That's not the point, Heero and you know it. I thought we were going to give up fighting? Give up on all of it."

"I didn't say we were going to go through with it, I just want to see what they want."

"No! You want to go because G said J was there and you want to act like that little, well trained soldier J is used to having. Damn it, Heero. He says frog, you jump, what the hell?" Duo asked, glaring.

"Duo, it's not like that at all."

"Oh, yeah? You tell me otherwise!" Duo snarled, pushing up from his lap and stalking behind the wall that seperated the kitchen from the rest of the house.

Heero sighed, getting up from his seat and following Duo to the other side of the wall, where Duo was leaning his front against a counter, having a staring contest with a bag of oranges. He frowned at the look on Duo's face. He looked surprised and upset, as if he couldn't believe that Heero was even suggesting that they would go through with what they'd just read. Heero stepped forward and put his arms around Duo's waist, bringing him to rest his back against his chest, placing his face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent.

"Don't be mad at me, Duo."

"I'll be mad all I want."

"Can't we just check it out? Do you know how advanced the technology has to be to come up with the machines capable of inducing cryogenic sleep? It would be interesting to go see what it is."

Duo shook his head, as if denying his words.

"Please, Duo?" Heero asked, holding him closer.

"God, you are a terrible begger... Fine. But if I don't like it, then I'm leaving and so are you," he said, looking over his shoulder at the Japanese male.

Heero nodded, kissing his temple before tightening his hold. "All right."

Duo frowned at him before looking forward again. He didn't agree with this.

He didn't want to go up to L2, nor did he want to do what these professors wanted from them, whatever it was.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Duo sighed as he looked around at the people in the shuttle port around them. Boarding a shuttle to L2. Something Duo didn't want to do at all. He hated being in or in the vicinity of L2 but G seemed to like it up there and demanded that the pilots meet them in that specific colony.

"He lives to make me miserable," Duo muttered to himself as he hoisted his bag back onto his back.

"Now boarding shuttle number 6724, to colony L2. Shuttle number 6724 to L2 now boarding."

Heero closed his laptop and stuffed it into its bag before grabbing his other duffle bag. One of his old habits he was getting back into, that laptop. Duo silently wondered why he hadn't thrown that thing out when he had the chance as he followed the other to the terminal. Once on the shuttle, the pit in Duo's stomach just seemed to grow larger. He watched the runway go by from his window before the shuttle took off for the colony.

Duo almost jumped out of his seat when he felt a hand go over his. He looked over at Heero, who was tilting his head at him.

"You okay?"

"Of course," Duo said sarcastically as he looked back out the window, "I'm in a shuttle on the way to a godforsaken colony to meet up with a psycho birdman. Everything's just peachy."

Heero sighed and watched the flight attendant closely before looking back at Duo, ignoring the weird look he got from the attendant when she saw their hands touching. This silence was probably going to be deafening throughout this whole trip, and Duo's sulking wasn't going to help.

"You didn't have to come," Heero pointed out.

"So?" Duo asked rather sourly.

"How long are you going to be mad at me?" Heero asked.

"I'm not mad at you. Hell, I'm not mad at all. Just frustrated because that old man couldn't just roll over and die like he was supposed to."

The shuttle rumbled and shook for a few moments before it steadied, a sign that they had broken through the Earth's atmosphere and were now in space.

"Artificial gravity has now been engaged, please feel free to get up from your seats when necessary," the attendant said.

Heero made sure she was out of hearing distance before he leaned over to Duo, "Need to use the bathroom?"

"No," Duo muttered.

"You sure?"

Duo looked over at Heero. A knowing smirk passed over his lips. "You know what? I do have to use the restroom. Let me by?"

Heero smirked and pulled his feet in a bit to allow the slender American through. Duo smiled on his way to the rather small restroom in the back before he closed the door behind him.

A few minutes after Duo left for the bathroom, Heero got up and followed him. He knocked lightly before the other opened the door and let him in. Duo snickered a bit as he had to stand on the toilet to make room. Heero locked the door and looked over at Duo, who had climbed onto the sink so they had enough space.

Once Heero was sure the door was secure, he turned to the slender male and leaned forward. "We have enough room?"

"I don't know, you're the... biggest one in here," Duo said, smirking as he leaned forward and licked Heero's nose.

"So I've been told."

Duo gasped and grabbed his shirt, giving him a mock stern look. "By who? I don't believe I've called you big in the past."

"Baka, you don't remember that night?"

"What night?" Duo asked, looking confused now.

"The night we sat down and measured. New Years Eve. You were drunk and wanted to know which of us was longer."

Duo looked down, thinking before he smirked. "Oh, yeah. I remember that. You were close to eleven inches, weren't you?"

"I believe so," Heero muttered as he placed his hands on the sink next to Duo's thighs and pressed a small kiss against his lips.

"No, twelve. I remember because I told you that if you grew another inch thenyou would have to buy an inflatable boyfriend because you weren't going to be sticking me with no thirteen inch needle."

Heero snickered at the American's choice of words as Duo brought their lips crashing together, bruising both his and Heero's at once. Heero tilted his head a bit to get better access as he let his tongue dart out and run over the other male's lower lip.

Duo made a low moaning noise, parting his lips to let Heero in and war with his own tongue. Calloused fingers reached up and unbuttoned his grey flannel shirt before pushing it off of him. The cloth whispered over pale flesh to pool in the basin with his braid. Duo moaned again as the same fingers ran over smooth, creamy flesh, sending goosebumps over his arms and shoulders. Duo reached up and grabbed a hold of Heero's tshirt, pulling it off and tossing it to the side, his own, also calloused fingers, exploring Heero's body. Heero leaned forward and lapped at the skin on Duo's neck, tasting the saltiness of his sweat.

It wasn't hot, but being around way too many people always put all of them on edge because a crowd of people that big was easier to blend into and attack and unsuspecting pilot. Heero smirked in satisfaction when Duo moaned his name and lowered his hands to remove Heero's blue jeans. Heero lowered his own hands to the other's pants to remove them as well.

Heero's pants came down with the buzzing of the zipper being lowered and then the whispering slide of them moving down long legs to pool at their owner's feet. Heero moved forward a few inches to bring alreadybruised lips crashing together. Duo groaned against his mouth as he placed his hands on the counter and lifted his hips as Heero pulled his pants off and tossed them with his shirt. Duo moaned lowly as the Japanese male broke the kiss and dipped down to lick and nip at his neck and the tendons there.

"We gotta… move a bit…" Duo panted before gasping as Heero went down lower and licked at hard nipples on his chest.

Heero chuckled as he went lower, "Move like this?" Heero asked.

Duo moaned as his warm breath past over his hard member, making his stomach flutter and thigh muscles clench almost painfully. Heero chuckled at the sight before he took the crown in his mouth and sucked on it, running the top of his tongue over the slit, licking up the salty precum that was already forming there.

Duo moaned, head tilting back as one hand thread through the other's hair and the other clenched on the tilelike material of the counter. He could hear the flight attendant or someone of the passengers knocking at the door, but he didn't care. He tilted his head back and moaned loudly, letting the person know someone was getting something on this shuttle. Someone was joining the Mile High Club outside the Ozone layer.

Heero moaned around the member in his mouth, causing Duo to cry out. Heero took the long rod into his mouth as far back as he could, deepthroating Duo until he hit the back of his throat. Duo gasped and moaned softly, trying hard not to thrust up into the warm mouth around him, but he couldn't stop the clenching of his hands.

Heero made a noise like a moan around his member, the vibrations taking the last of Duo's concentration and shattering it. Duo threw his head back and cried out as he came in the other's mouth, a white ribbon of inner fluid hitting the back of Heero's throat. Heero moaned as he drank all of it then leaned up and pressed their lips together again.

Duo opened his mouth to let Heero in, tasting himself on the other's tongue before they parted.

"Get dressed," Heero growled as he pushed away, bent down and grabbed his own clothes, pulling his pants back up.

"You are such a buzz kill," Duo groaned as Heero pushed his clothes into his lap. "Dressed, Duo."

Duo stuck his tongue out at Heero rather childishly before he pulled his shirt over his bare chest then slid from the counter and began to pull his pants on.

"I'll head back to the seat, then you," Heero muttered.

"That is, if the captain didn't hear me from the cockpit," Duo commented with a smirk as he hooked a stray hair behind his ear.

Heero glared at him before he slipped out of the bathroom. Duo locked the door, turned to the window and began to unbraid his hair. He rebraided the long stands before he left the bathroom and went back to his chair.

He could feel the eyes of many people on him but could do nothing but smile. What? Was he going to dispute the fact that he just got some of the best sex of his life in a cramped little bathroom on a shuttle?

/Hell no/ Duo thought with a smile as he sat back in his seat.

This ride was starting to shape up rather nicely


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, or its characters.

Chapter 3

Exiting the shuttle was as hectic as boarding it. There were people everywhere and no one seemed to know where they were going, or what they wanted to do. Duo grabbed his own bag before grabbing Heero's and tossing it over his shoulder at the Japanese male behind him. The two of them made their way out the door before—

"Duo! Heero!"

Duo let out a loud grunt and was almost knocked over by a rather fastmoving blond bullet.

"Jesus Christ! Air… I need… Air!" Duo gasped before he was released by the blond after a quick hug.

Quatre Winner looked up at him with a rather large smile that always seemed to be gracing his almost angelic features. Over the course of the year since Duo last saw him, Quatre had grown at least a good five inches in height. Where before he only came up to his chest, now he reached the top of his shoulders and didn't have to look up much to see him.

Behind him, walking as cool as cucumber, was Trowa Barton. Nothing changed much on him, other than he was another inch taller, and his bangs didn't hide as much of his face as they used to. Quatre still had some baby fat on his face, but Trowa, like always, didn't seem to have any at all. He seemed to have been born with his stern and grown face. Quatre was dressed in a suit that had been definitely tailored for his small frame, as it emphasized things like his chest, slim waist, and long legs. Trowa left the turtlenecks behind, but still wore formfitting jeans, brown boots, and something green that emphasized the only visible emerald eye.

"It's good to see you again. You've been okay?" Quatre asked immediately.

"Nice to see you, Quat, and yes, I've been fine. You?"

"Work, work, going home, and more work," Quatre said before turning to the other traveler. "Hello, Heero."

"Quatre," Heero said, catching himself before he called the blond by his last name, another old habit that was rearing its ugly black head.

"Trowa." He nodded to the tall male.

Trowa nodded back to him. "Heero."

"Anyone seen or heard from Wufei or Zechs yet?" Quatre asked.

"Psh… Wukitty never tells us anything until the last minute, and then it's only for something important like his lower body was blown to bits, and I think Zechs is incommunicado on Mars," Duo said.

Quatre sighed before he nodded. "All right. So, where are we going?"

"G said to go to the lab where we first met, which made no sense to me because I was caught stowing away on his shuttle, no lab." Duo muttered as he put his arms behind his head, frowning a bit.

"Maybe we should head there." Quatra said, looking from Duo to Heero.

Duo smirked, and nodded, "I'm pretty sure it's still there. I mean, nothing changes on this godawful place."

"Lead the way." Heero said, placing his hand in between Duo's shoulder blades.

"Huh? What? When did I get volunteered for this?" Duo asked, almost backpeddling against Heero's hand.

"Just now. March," Heero growled, pushing him forward a bit.

Duo sighed before glaring at him. "We'll see if you get anything tonight."

"Hn." Heero grunted, smirking as he picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, handing Duo his.

Duo hmphed and turned from Heero, braid whipping behind him with the movement as he lead the way out of the shuttle port and into the artificial light of the colony. It was the same lonely grey color Duo remembered it being. Everything was grey, even the road was a dismal shade of it and it wasn't that hard to navigate to where they needed to be. The shuttleport in which the old professor had launched the shuttle Duo broken into looked to have been gutted, the runway had been removed and plants had been planted to make real air for the Colony, but that was an obvious failure. The building itself looked the same, only with boards over the windows, blocking out the light and the rest of the world.

"I told you that we would find them here." came a rather disgruntled voice from behind the four of them.

Duo was the fastest to whip around and see Zechs and Wufei climbing out of a dull, yellow taxi cab with worn down tires and faded signs, advertizing hair supplies only the rich that were long gone could afford; the only source of color in the colony.

"Wuffers!" Duo exclaimed before running over and almost tackled the Chinese man to the ground.

"Damn it, Maxwell. Why do you have tohat? Let go!" Wufei growled, trying to pry the American's arms from around him but Duo only chuckled and held tighter.

"Aw, come on, Wukitten. Admit it. You missed me." Duo said, smirking up at the other.

"Missed the quiet? Never. Let go, Maxwell. Now."

Duo chuckled as he let Wufei go, stepping back to turn to Zechs, smirking at him. "Hi, Zechsy."

Zechs smirked and shook his head at him, "Hi, Duo. No, I didn't miss you and please, don't glomp me, either."

"Jesus, you /all/ are no fun at all," Duo whined, pouting at each of them in turn.

"Good, you're all here," G muttered, startling Duo and making him whip around again to where the old, birdlike professor was gesturing for them to follow him into the place.

Duo practically had his hand glued to Heero's as they walked through the place, looking around, he even refused to let go when he felt Heero try to pull away as J started towards them. The man was leaning on his cane, his one robotic hand behind his back, as if to hide it as he surveyed the six of them with his bottle cap glasses. He then settled on Heero.

"Hello, Agent 01," J greeted Heero.

The Japanese pilot's face darkened. "I don't go by that anymore, Dr. J," he growled. Even Duo was surprised by that little outburst, but J only smirked.

"Understood. I am glad that you all could make it. I should start explaining the sleep process," J muttered, then told them where the freezing process would be held, what the conditions were and what problems there were on the chambers. "The only thing we haven't been able to fix was that we can't freeze clothes or anything metal. Cloth of any kind disrupts the electrical system that keeps the specimen alive."

"Anything else?" Duo asked, almost sarcastically.

"No. We will be freezing you all in Antarctica because it is secluded. Also, it is cold, so we won't have to use too much electricity. That would shock your bodies into a complete stop. Anyone interested?"

"I am," Heero replied.

Duo turned to Heero, opening his mouth to protest his agreeing when,

"I'll go through with this," Quatre sighed.

"Same," Trowa said quietly.

"I will as well," Zechs said, his arms folded over his chest as he looked at the two professors with a scrutinizing eye.

Duo closed his mouth with an audible click before he looked down, swerving his head to the professors, almost glaring. "I'm in, too."

Everyone turned to Wufei, the only one left to not give his yea nor nay. He was sitting on a stool in a corner, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed, eyes half closed, deep in thought as if he was weighing his options.

"I have no reason to go through with this. I have everything I need here. If we are put in this sleep, we won't have any say in what happens to our bodies. There doesn't seem to be any reason for me to go through with this... other than the fact that I have nothing much to do here. There are a few rebelions sometimes but there are plenty of other Preventers who jump at the chances to deal with them. I spend most of my time behind a damnable desk. When will be woken from this?"

"When you're needed."

"When we're needed..." Wufei repeated before nodding.

"Needless to say, when there's another war. Wasn't that the phrase that was in G's letter? We are only soldiers, and right now there is no need for a bunch of them, is there? I guess I'll go through with this as well, since I made a promise to protect the Earth and the colonies. There's nothing threatening peace so far, and I foresee nothing threatening while Relena Peacecraft is in office. My duty is put to rest for now, so I will rest as well."

"The actual operation will be in a week," G informed the six pilots, some looking eager, others detached. Duo was silently seething, biting away at his bottom lip when he was sure no one was looking.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters.

Chapter 4

Duo closed the thick diary in the metal box with his cross, his favorite picture of him and Heero, and all of his CDs, locking the door and memorizing the digital key code before he walking away from everything. It was Heero's idea to put their most prized possessions in an electronic Safety Deposit Box, he made the plan with the owner to take out the money needed from their account and, in exchange, the boxes would never be opened until they took them out.

Duo had followed Heero back to the apartment they shared on Earth. Everyone was planetside right now, waiting for the day they would take a plane to the Antartic and go along with the 'master plans', as Duo called them.

Heero ordered pizza, then sat on the floor next to Duo. The last of their furniture had been sold yesterday. The only thing that was left was the godawful flowerprint queen size bed that the apartment had come with. Duo didn't seem to care about any of that, but something was bothering him. Heero could tell by the way Duo fiddled with the end of his braid; he flicked the tufted end over his fingers, back and forth as he stared at the burn mark the previous owner had made before they moved in.

Swift hands saved the fringed ends from further torture before the other hooked under the violeteyed boy's chin, forcing him to look up at the pair of cobalt blue that were looking down at him worriedly.

"What's wrong?"

"I just have a bad feeling about all of this," Duo muttered, trying to look away, but Heero's hand kept his face in place without hurting him.

"They said they had everything worked out."

"Oh, I don't mean about the sleeping, Heero," Duo growled, pulling his braid from Heero and tossing it out of the other's reach, what he usually did when Heero was being stupid.

"Then what is the matter?"

"Wufei made a point. They will wake us when another war comes around. I would be fine with that if I didn't remember how you were during the war. I really don't want to see you like that again. You worked hard to get rid of the soldier and another war will bring him back. Same with me... I don't want Shinigami to come back."

"You're worried that I'll try and selfdestruct again?"

Duo looked at the floor and nodded.

"What if I promise that I won't?"

"A lot can happen in the time we're asleep, Heero. You can't guarantee anything." Duo muttered.

"Well, I can try. Like you said before, as long as I try, that's all we can expect from anyone."

Violet eyes peered from under jagged bangs before he let out an exasperated noise, nodding his head.

"I promise to try my hardest to not selfdestruct if we are woken for another war, okay?" Heero asked.

"Promise?"

"I swear."

Duo let a relieved smile creep across his face before he fully looked at Heero. "I guess that'll do for now."

"Okay?"

"Yes."

"Good. Let's eat." Heero got up and grabbed Duo's wrists, hauling the braided male to his feet.

Duo chuckled as Heero caught him and led him to the front door where the pizza delivery boy was due any second. In the back of his mind, a little voice kept trying to nag at him to get Heero to reconsider going through with all of this, to put it off, maybe even sabatoge it himself, but he pushed it away.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters.

Chapter 5

Duo watched as Quatre and Trowa were frozen in their pods. They looked only to be sleeping with ice around them. Like little cartoon characters that fell into the water during winter and were now frozen in ice blocks. It was kinda creepy, especially since nothing changed on them. Trowa's bangs stayed like that, and Quatre's bangs were frozen in place, making the two of them look like statues.

Duo could already feel the sleep aids the doctors had given him start taking effect, but was fighting them so he could say good night to Heero. Both Duo and Heero had heavier doses in their pills than the others because of Duo's natural ability to withstand drugs and Heero's training. It was a little bit of a pain since once the drug penetrated through Duo's resistance it hit him hard. Like a sudden and overpowering urge to just let gravity drag you down.

Heero walked into the room in his boxers. The six wore their boxers around until the last minute when they stripped down to nothing and stepped into the pods, to be frozen naked and asleep. Duo tore his eyes from the pods and looked at Heero, who looked tired, as the meds were also taking effect on him.

His dark blue eyes were darker under eyelids at half mast, his shoulders were hunched a bit, and he was almost walking into things, something Duo would have laughed at until he peed himself if he hadn't already walked into two walls on the way to his own pod.

"02, unbraid your hair," G growled.

"Huh? Oh." Duo muttered, having forgotten about his hair for a minute.

"I'll get it, turn around." Heero growled, glaring at G for taking such a stern tone with his Duo.

Duo gave Heero a tired smile before turning his back to him. Strong hands picked up the long rope of hair before he pulled the band from the end of the hair and his hands slowly and clumsily unraveled the thick strands of hair until his fingers could glide through the waterfall of chestnut.

Duo purred as he felt every soft pull on his hair as Heero spent this last amount of time that they had playing and brushing his hair with his fingers. Duo forced himself to stay awake, turning and throwing his arms around Heero's neck once more before the freeze. He almost laughed as he felt Heero hug him back, fingers still toying with his hair. He was upset that he had to sleep in a frozen pod with no Heero beside him, no rhythmic breathing from the exWing pilot to lull hum to sleep, and knowing he wasn't going to be able to wake up and find the Japanese male beside him, either still asleep or watching him.

Nope, the first thing he was probably going to see at the end of this was glass and the pod across from him that held a frozen Zechs right now.

"See ya on the other side," Duo murmured as he pulled away and headed for his pod and started to remove the last article of clothing.

"Hai. See you," Heero said as he did the same.

Duo pushed down then tossed the boxers he'd been wearing aside and stepped into the pod, looking around the metal walls nervously. It was rather intimidating to see the two metal and Gundanium walls around and made him feel the familiar presence of claustrophobia setting in. After once being trapped in Deathscythe for two days with nothing but walls and darkness, he developed this phobia and squashed it down, but now it was threatening to rear its ugly head again. He almost began to panic when the glass door slid shut in front of him and something beeped outside the pod, starting the freezing process, but he couldn't see any changes at all.

He felt his hair fall over his shoulders, blanketing some of his front as the pod doors started to freeze. Ice crinkled and cracked as it slowly stretched its clear, white fingers over the glass, branching out like a demented tree and cutting him off from the world, from the light, from the air. Duo closed his eyes, willing his heart to stop hammering and for sleep to come, imagining that he was at the apartment, the covers drawn around himself, Heero beside him, arms around his waist, that rhythmic, almost mechanical breathing he'd thought about earlier in his ear.

Duo felt the familiar presence of dreams come over him, not realizing that his body was already frozen, ice encasing him. His lungs, his heart, the blood in his veins froze where it was, even oxygen in the cells also being frozen into place to prevent decay of the body, the only thing that didn't seem frozen was his mind, as he dreamed of everything, starting with his first memory of living under a laundromat with the younger orphans during winter, while Solo and the older ones went to steal food and warm clothes.


	6. Chapter 6

The wind blew harsh, pushing against him as he trudged through the thigh deep snow. A shiver wracked through his body as he tucked his hands under his arms to keep them warm and protect his chest from the fridged cold. He smirked to himself as the path before him lit up. Behind him, a huge firey inferno plume into a red mushroom cloud of death and destruction.

Mission Accomplished.

It was one of his easiest missions ever. All he had to do was blow up a small factory that threatened to get close to the base. Earth was really running low on it's resources, and the places to get those resources needed were few and far between. The only great place to get resources around here were the snow capped oil reserves for the older model T mechas, and the Aurora Rays that were harvested every once and while for the particles that resided in them.

Odd how that worked. Gathering an atom out of the sky and using it's charged particles to create energy for mechas and cities. It was amazing technology fifty years ago, an invention of an older than God professor, and patented by the Peacecraft family, but now, with the layers apon layers of ozone that were once apart of the Earth being stripped away, so there wasn't anything to charge the atoms.

He shivered once more as he came up to the great metalic doors to the base an dpunched in his code. He waited for the beep of confermation and slipped in. He shook the snow off of his head and shoulders, making sure that his dark auburn hair didn't keep its hold on the snowflakes that collected in it. Dark blue eyes looked up at the entrance way to the massive, underground base. It was suppose to be an old 'War Museum' in the Artic ways. No one even bothered to ask obvious questions like why there would be an 'Old War Museum' in the middle of a desolent waseland of snow and ice.

The whole entry way was lined with old planes, old mobile suits and the old Gundams from the first war. They were plastic manikins but they were the right size and everything was where it was suppose to be. It was beautiful and disturbing to see after coming in from pitch black and snow. It was like an assault on your senses but he loved it. Loved seeing the old machines, how they used to be, compairing them to how they are to work now.

He shrugged out of his coat and moved down the line. His small legs took him to the door across the hall where he punched in the code, hearing the gears shift, click and groan under the pressure of having to move. Small fingers ran through his hair once more, making the already messy locks become even more unruley. The door slid open with a soft hiss but before he could move into them, his eyes landed on the hard metalic form of one of the professors.

"I see it was a success, boy." The old mechanical thing droned, looking down at him.

He frowned a bit before he held out the disk to him, "Here. I'm going to my room now." He pushed past him and into the hideout. He moved down the halls, keeping his head high and his shoulders straight as he walked.

There were two of those old professors. They are mostly machine now, the only thing human in them are their brains, which floated somewhere on the mechanical body they've fashioned for themselves. Take J, for instance. He was an older model body. His form was like that of an egg with round, bottle cap lenses for eyes, two pincers for arms and a old fashioned tank wheel base for legs.

Buttons glowed and beeped on him, showing that he was alive, and when he would talk, a small light at the top of his head glowed. It was funny when he was a little child, but not it was the sort of thing that would give one a headache if he talked to much, and talk to much is what he did.

He slipped into his room, making sure to close and lock the door. He moved to the bathroom and stepped into the shower, knowing the water was already pre-set to the perfect temperature and stood under the spray.

He looked himself over, his hands, his arms, his body. He reached up and ran it over his hsoulders, his neck and then his face, frowning a little bit as he thought over everything that's happened in his life. It hasn't been much. He was born from birth tube in a lab ten years ago, he'd floated in thel liquid for almost ten months before the water was drained and he was collected from it. He knew only clones were born like that unless they were planted in a female, which there was limited supply of here.

He didn't know what there was to clone around here, porbably just the professors cloning thmeselves over again. He shivered violently at the thought of himself being one of or both of those men. He rubbed his chest, mostly to be sure it was warm enough before stepping out of the comfortable spray. He wrapped a white towle around his waist and moved to the mirror.

He whipped away the steam and looked at himself, taking in everything. He reached up, pushing his bangs out of his face, mulling over how dark it got in the water. He rubbed his eyes, blinking a few times then glancing at them. They were an odd color, it was kinda like it was blue, but there were so many other colors mixed into them that they could be mistaken as hazel, or violet.

He stepped back to look at himself better, looking at his pointed chin, his rather crooked looking nose. His hair never grew past his ears, he couldn't figure that one out. He'd love to have long hair, just to piss J and G off, but it wasn't something he would ever be able to do. He sighed softly as he gathered his clothes and tossed them into the bathtub so they wouldn't collect mold on the floor or anything then got dressed into warm clothes.

His name was Ghost, no idea where it came from, but it was his name. It was what the idiotic professors dubbed him when he was first old enough to understand that he even had a name. He felt like a ghost most of the time, always in the shows, having to flit around if he wanted to go somewhere. It was a shame, but it was also something that he did for training.

Ghost moved carefully, and fluidly through the base. Keeping away J and G. They were the only ones here, yes, but they were always able to hear him coming. He didn't know how they did it but he could float through the air in their general direction and they would somehow feel the shift in air particles and know it was him.

The young man smirked as he gained speed in the hall, making sure that he kept from J and G's normal hang outs in the base. He almost laughed before he gasped softly when he found a wetpatch he'd left from entering from the nsow. He tried to regain his balance, throwing himself back and only succeeding in pitching himself forward, slidding across the lenolium floor.

Ghost let out a startled yelp and hit the wall with a hard thunk. Groaning softly, he tried to sit up, tensing when he heard the tell talle cracking sound above his head. Lifting his head, he looked up at the wall, paling a little as the wall cracked and it spread. The metal broke away, thunking on his head a few times before he seemed to smarten up and scoot from the falling wall.

The ten year old watched with wide eyes as almost the whole wall crumpled before his eyes. He'd seen a cartoon once in an old file. The character had hit the wall close to how he had, but the character had crumpled into dust like the wall was doing. Truthfully, he didn't think that the real world could do that. A black gaping hole replaced the once polished metal walls.

"Oh, man… G's going to skin me alive… he hates when he has to replace the walls…" Ghost murmured to himself.

There was darkness in the opening, and a flash of light caught his attention. Violet eyes glanced around. The last thing he wanted was for one of the two to catch him red handed. They would already know it was him, but he didn't feel like being there when the reaction hit home. He saw no one down the halls, and nodded his head, they weren't going to come down and he moved into the opening.

Darkness consumed him, blurring everything. He couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. He felt around the wall, looking for a light switch before his hand brushed across the hard, raised surface of it. Flipping it up into the on possition, his vision, starting to get adjusted to the black, was asulted by blinking white. The white washed over the room and showed him the panels that were covered in old fashioned lettering, the keys rusted together. Useless.

Ghost ran his hand over them, frowning as one of them cracked in half under just even the slight pressure of his finger tips. The blinking caught his perefrial vision and he made his way twords it. The blinking was coming from a rather dark corner of the room, the lights flipping on as Ghost flipped another light switch. His breath caught in his throat, unable to help himself as he stared.

Six glass pods lined the wall, each holding a person in them. Thin layers of dust covered the pods and slightly blurred the images of the person they held in their icy hold. Ghost stepped forward, reaching out and touching one pod. He let his fingers push the dust aside to show what was in it. The ice wrapped around the most beautiful face Ghost had ever seen in his life. He couldn't tell what it was, the ice was too thick, but he could see the face, outlines of the hair, and a little bit of the body's silhouette.

Ghost was fairly good sized for his age, about four food one, but the person behind the glass easily had to be six two. It's hair reached down to his ankles. His face was a slight heart shape, mared only by the jagged bangs that sat on his forehead.

Ghost tilted his head a little, staring at the face for a while then shook his head. Snapping himself out of the trance he'd somehow put himself in. Blue-violet eyes darted around the room and landed on the consol that was attached to the pod that held the beauty. Slim fingers pressed down on tiny green button on it, smiling a little to himself as the pod made a groaning, hissing noise.

The ice slowly melted around the person in the pod, going slow as if making sure nothing was thawed too fast or too slow. The lax body folded in as the ice went lower and lower until it was laying at the bottom of the pod. Ghost moved to the pod and pulled the lock on the hatch, catching the tumbler then lifting it up. He stepped in, gathering the wet person up into a sitting position.

He was heavy as dead weight, but he was tiny. For his size, he had to be underweight or something. Ghost pushed him up against the wall of the pod and lifted the face, studying. Well, it was defidently a male, the evidence was kinda sitting near his knee. He shifted the head up, watching the small twitches in the heartshapped face. A small smile graced his little face before a hand darted up from nowhere and snatched up his wrist, pulling him up.

Ghost let out a small gasp as when he blinked, his eyes met very confussed, beautiful violet ones. Ghost felt his stomach drop into his gut, making him shiver unvoluntarily.

"You aren't Heero…" the beauty rasped, pain lancing through his eyes then they were closed off, emotion hidden.

"N-no… I'm Ghost… a clone… who are you?" he asked softly, unable to pry his eyes from the other male.

"Ghost? What kidna name is that? Shouldn't be picky, I suppose… where are the others?"

"Frozen still… you haven't answered my question yet. Who are you, and why were you frozen?"

"That's not your original question… Unfreeze the others and I'll tell you, ne?" he asked softly, letting his grip fall from the other's wrist.

Ghost nodded and scrambled out of the pod. He worked quick, pushing the buttons and returning to the beauty he'd left in the first pod. He stopped at the entrance, watching as he seemed to be falling back to sleep in the pod, save for the wince that would occasionally go through his face. Ghost idly wondered if it was due to the freezing process and chalked it up to that. Nodding to himself, he moved to the edge of the pod and bent down to look at the new male again.

"What's your name?" he asked again, smiling in his head when he thin body leapt a few inches in fright.

"Man, you should know not to sneak up on someone before they've gotten their coffee… You unfreeze the others?" he asked.

Ghost nodded, his hair obscuring his view when it moved before settling back into it's normal place.

The beauty nodded before he sighed softly, "The name's Duo. Duo Maxwell. What year is it?"

"… AC 309… You can't be Duo Maxwell…"

"Wow… a hundred years… no wonder I'm jonesing for some coffee. Where's the others?" he asked, his voice shaking slightly.

"They're… they're still thawing…" he studdered, unable to control himself, he bent down and pulled the towle over the other's slender frame, blinking in surprise when he finsihed.

"I think I'm a big boy, kid. I can handle this." Duo said, smirking at how adorable the kid was being.

The kid sputtered before he found something else to do in getting more towles from outside the hole in the wall, and taking them to each pod. One by one, the metalic pods opened up, the water spilling from them, soaking the floor and their contents of one, still asleep pilot would fall to the old linolium.

Each one had a certain reaction time to being thawed out. Heero's was the quickest. By the time he crumpled to the ground, no one had a chance to even breath before he was lifting his head and looking around, wondering where he was, what was happening and who he was killing for waking him up. The blonds, Quatra and Zechs actually had the slowest time getting up, taking a full minute to pick themselves up off the ground and collect their towles.

Ghost glanced at them all, taking in their faces before he turned back to the first one he'd thawed out. The beauty that was now climbing to his feet, trying to keep steady on the wet ground, and uncordinated musceals.

"Well, well, well. I didn't think that this was a sight that I would live to see."

All seven of the boys jumped a few inches before turning to the opening, where two mechanical beings stood. One was the egg shapped J, the sinnaps that powered and listened to his brain firing off faster than normal. The other was a more human looking one, an android, body hidden by the old, white lab coat that was draped over his shoulders and buttoned down the middle. His head fashioned to have the same bird like nose as when he had a real body, metalic panels pulled over parts of his face in a mushroom shape to simulate the old hairstyle that he used to wear. There was no visible signs of a brain on this one, nothing that glowed, or beeped, nothing.

"It's nice to see that you all enjoied your naps." G said, sounding like he was muttering, the hinge of his robot jaw creaking and sort of giving off a teeth grating squeek as it moved.

"Cool… Pestillence has gone all high tech now." Duo said from where he was standing, humor lacing his still shaky voice.

"These 'high tech' as you call it, is just to ensure that we are still around when we are needed. Atleast for the time being for some of us." G said, another screech filling the air with his jaw.

"Shut it." J growled, the mouth screen for him lighting up a bit before going black once more.

"how come you aren't all cool looking?" Duo asked J, rubbing his hands over his arms, trying to warm them up a little.

"Decided that I didn't want to be upgraded. Not yet, anyways." J said, not even seeming to be paying attention to him before his bottle cap shapped eyes turned and fixed themselves on Heero, who was rubbing the towle through his short hair, trying to get the cold, dripping water from trailing down, something that would cause him to shiver when it happened, "Well, boy. Looks like, as usual, you're around exactly when I need you."

Heero turned to him, a glare on his face as he lowered the towle and wrapped it around his waist, "What do you want?"

"It's not what we want, it's what we have to do." G said, waving his silver hand, as if dismissing Heero's question.

"What is it that we have to do?" Wufei asked, already knowing the answer.

Duo flinched at the question, already dreading the answer. It would seem that the day that he hoped would never come has. The one thing that he was afraid of. Truthfully, if he was honest with himself, he hopped in the back of his mind that they would be put under, and after a couple hundred years, they would be thawed out and allowed to live normal lives, finally. It didn't look like his wish was going to be granted.

"War." J and G said at the same time, confirming Duo's suspicians, and dreads, making his empty stomach plummet into his lower intestines, his heart to skip a beat or two and a soft sight to escape his lips.

War… the one thing that would tear all of them apart again, and probably kill them. The one thing they've ever been able to do with themselves, and now, it's going to be the one thing that they would see at the end of their days. No more nights of just laying there in bed, holding his love while they drift off, no more days where the biggest thing that would happen is they would see an old lady get her purse napped and would help. No more of that. They were no longer civilians again, they were soldiers. He was no longer just Duo Maxwell anymore. He was now, once again, Duo Maxwell, Shinigami.

He felt eyes on him and looked to his right, catching the small boy staring at him before he looked away, a small blush dusting his cheeks, embarassed at being caught staring at him. Duo felt sadness creep through his body, recognizing the look in the boy's eyes as he looked at J.

He was a born, bred and trained soldier… and he probably wasn't even old enough to see over a console. Duo sighed to himself before closing his eyes, not noticing the others moving out of the room until heero touched his back, guiding him out and with the others.

'Here we go again…'


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, save for maybe the plot and a few OCs, but not the G-boys, any names that you will probably recognize.

Author's Note: Terribly sorry for the delays. Life has decided that it wanted to rear its ugly head but I was able to beat into submission and pushed it back to its grazing points… Aka, everything's good now.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Here, put these on." G said, tossing each pilot a bag with a pair of pants, shirt, socks, and cloth slippers in it, "They should fit."

The sound of plastic ripping was all that could be heard for a little while as each pilot opened the plastic bags and got dressed, finding underwear in the bags as well. Duo scowled as his hair was still unbound, unable to put it up, or anything, Wufei was having a similar problem with his own, shoulder length hair. It kept falling into his face, blocking his vision and made it so he couldn't see what he was doing very well.

After all of them were dressed, the two professors started to move again, leading them to a room with a round table in the center of it, chairs scattered all over the place. In short, it looked like a briefing room. Shoulders tensed on a few of the pilots as they hesitantly took their seats. G sat in a chair, joints making as loud and grating a noise as his jaw, J didn't even bother to try; as he could hardly move as it was with the weird legs he was bestowed.

"So… what are we going to be doing? I mean, about this war and such that we're supposed to be in now?" Wufei asked, not even dancing around the subject.

"Fifty years ago, Secretary of Peace Miss Relena Peacecraft and her family, a daughter, two sons, and a couple of unidentified grandchildren, were assassinated in their home in the country side." G said, allowing a few seconds for the information to be processed, "After the funerals, and a massive election campaign, her predecessor, a man named Khristos Gant, decided that peace wasn't being taken care of adequately. He started the creation, and supervised the building of guns, weapons, and mechas."

"Being the unoriginal twit that he is, he decided to form an army to attempt to over throw the government, and named it OZ." J said, clawed hand clicking intentionally before him.

"So basically, you want us to fight again? Someone else's war, again?" Duo asked, biting his lower lip rather bitterly.

"It's something that you were trained to do, 02. Originally, your hiding place was forgotten, left to when they tore this place down, they might've been able to find you in time to thaw you out before the process killed you." G said.

"What?!"

Ghost winced at the loud exclamations from the boys. Looking to them, he watched as the one with black hair started to rant and yell about the injustice of something, the small blond next to the second tallest looked absolutely horrified by what G had said. The blond with the long hair looked as pissed as the one with black hair. The beauty from before was on his feet, a murderous look in his eyes, the only ones that were relatively calm were the two brunettes, who hadn't moved since the explanations started.

"That wasn't what we signed up for, G! You told us that we would be woken when we were needed, not when it was convenient for you! And, if you'd gone and croaked while we were asleep, like you were suppose to before all of this even, you're telling me that we /might/ have been able to survive long enough to be woken up? When they tore this place down?!"

"Duo, calm down." Heero said beside him, tugging on his braid of hair.

"No! Damn it, Heero! Stop sitting there like an idiot!"

"You're being irrational." Heero stated.

"And you aren't rationalizing at all! They would've just let us died, just because they didn't remember what the hell happened. What they did a while ago. They told us that we would be monitored at all times, that there would always be a scientist, or someone else monitoring our signs, making sure nothing happened while we were asleep! Damn it, one of us could've died before this kid even accidently found us!"

"But we were found. We're all alive, and just fine." Heero said.

Duo glared at him, mostly to keep from punching him in the face. The idiot was being way too cool about this, any other day, he would've been pointing a gun at the two's heads, threatening to kill them for almost killing him. Heero gave his braid another tug and he sat down, snarling at the ground.

"As I was saying, this is what you were all trained for, to be a part of a war, to live in a war setting. You thrive better in this setting than anywhere else. There are a few things that have changed that you will be trained on."

"Like" Wufei asked, sounding irritated.

"New guns, your mechas will be to be fashioned for you. There's a new piloting program that needs to be tested and-" G stopped, seeing all six of them tense, even Zechs, who seemed to be having the same thought as the five ex-Gundam pilots.

"I thought the Zero System was going to be left alone…" Heero said, frowning as he looked at J specifically.

"Is the failed system of Zero the only system I have ever created for you, boy?" J growled, seeming to glare with the bottle cap eyes.

"It's the only one we've all had experience with, and most of us, if not all of us have had problems with." Trowa said, speaking for the first time.

"I still don't see what you all had a problem with. It's a simple system." J said, sounding rather offended.

"A simple system that drove all of us insane to use. I destroyed a whole colony!" Quatra protested.

"Even I had trouble with it, Doctor J…" Heero said, frowning a little.

"It's not safe at all, at least not when we used it." Duo said, flicking his braid over his shoulder seeming to be doing so in absent minded thought, but it was just to distract himself.

"Well, it's not the Zero system, it's a different operating system made for the Gundams." J said.

"Hey, news flash. We destroyed all of the Gundams, how are we going to rebuild them without causing suspicion." Duo asked, looking up from the table he was glaring a hole into.

"Outside, in the portion of this place that is being dubbed an 'Old War Museum', are 'plastic' mannequins of your old Gundams. In reality, outside of the dubbing, they _are _your old Gundams. They were rebuilding seventy-five years ago by the Peacecraft family, hoping to find out how they work and use the core system to power the colonies. It wasn't strong enough for colonies. We were supposed to destroy them." J said, rather off handedly.

Ghost started. Those things that he'd been admiring all of his life were real Gundams, real ones. Before, there were some that were made for the wars after the Eve wars of a hundred years ago, but those wars only last a few days. As soon as someone piloting something that looked similar to a Gundam appeared, the fight was over, and the machines disappeared, rumored to have been sent into the sun, or destroyed by some means. No one has ever done anything close to the pilots of the Eve war; they were the most infamous of anyone wishing to be either an airline pilot, or a mechas pilot of a simple demolition digger.

These were those pilots, they were truly those pilots.

"All that will have to be done is to convert the old parts inside of the Gundams to get them functional again. While that is going on, J will teach you about the new weapons and then, the real training programs will start." G said.

"We don't need to train on anything. Just brush up…" Duo said rather hotly.

"Not for you… For the newer pilots." G said, "You are going to be training new pilots. The world is a lot bigger than it used to be."

"New pilots?!" Duo squawked, bolting upright into his chair.

"You will be given a file later on. Each one of you will be getting a kid that will be around the age that Heero was when I found him. You will be in charge of making sure those kids know how to pilot, fire a weapon, and anything else that you know how to do."

"No!" Quatra called, echoed by Duo, Wufei and Zechs.

"I refuse to teach a child anything that would put them in the same position that we were all those years ago!" Wufei growled, dark eyes narrowed.

"You don't have a choice. Either you do it, or we will." J said, turning to Wufei.

Duo tensed in his seat before he shot Wufei a 'Tell you later' look from across the room. Heero had told him a bit of what J had put him through while teaching him how to pilot, how to survive certain drugs, how to take being beaten and interrogated, anything. Hell, Heero was so wound up and mechanical as a pilot, he blew himself up inside his Gundam, almost killed him.

"Are we in an agreement?" J asked.

Solemn nods were all the three could manage to give him. All of them were either seething in silent anger, or were just too pissed to do anything at all. It took the two rambling about what was going on in the war a few more minutes before they were allowed to leave without being called back to their seats, something Duo learned real fast. Allowed to leave, they moved to find places to stay, rooms to be in.

Settling into their rooms, the couples sharing a room, they went back to sleep in the beds they had. Ghost mulled that they shouldn't be so tired, they just woke up from being asleep for a hundred years. He wanted to talk to them, learn a little more about them, and learn what it was like back then. He really wanted to be able to hear stories about the old war, and how the mechas were used then. Leaving it like it was, he moved to his room, going to take a nap himself, tired from the whole ordeal.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Arialee: ^_^ Thank you.

Windwraith: I know the whole plot thing is a little slow, but it will all be explained eventually.

Elementalfoxgoddess: I've been paying attention to your reviews. I understand it all, and I totally agree. I love Duo's hair, and tend to make it longer than it probably is, but I love it all just the same. I wish I could draw well, I would show you all what Duo looks like to me in my head, while frozen. It's really nice looking, at least to me.

Anyways, enjoy.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, save for maybe the plot and a few OCs, but not the G-boys, any names that you will probably recognize.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The sound of guns firing echoed in the range, deafening sound it was. Kind of like thunder cracking, but sharper, and more sudden. G converted the 'cryogenic room' into a range in less than a few days. He had nothing better to do while waiting for the parts to convert the 'plastic' mechas into real functioning Gundams. All of the pilots were crammed into the room, taking turns, three each, firing their weapons.

Duo was kneeling on the ground, cleaning his weapon, scowling at it before he started to take it apart piece by piece, setting the pieces out seemingly in random intervals on the sterilized ground. Beside him, Quatra was tossing his empty weapon from hand to hand, feeling the weight before he reached over and grabbed the one that was loaded with a clip. He clicked the barrel out of place, pulling the pin out to prevent it from firing while he was testing the weight, and began to do the juggling act with his one as well. Wufei was scowling as his own gun, he didn't like it.

The guns were more automatic now. The barrels that once adorned the prized possessions that Duo carried around were replaced with the cartridges that loaded in the handle. The barrel was made smaller, the opening barely big enough to slip a pencil into. The rounds were extremely tiny, but built to explode after stopping to maximize damage.

"A _laser pointer_?! Seriously?!" Duo yelled angrily, tossing the thing over his shoulder carelessly, not even looking when the thing shattered behind him.

"These weapons are a joke." Heero muttered as he sat down beside Duo, his trademark glare turned onto his weapon of choice.

The next fifteen minutes were spent where the original five took apart their guns and began to trade parts. Duo slipped a spring loader from Trowa's .145 caliber weapon, a thing that looked more like it belongs in the army than in the hands of someone that was going to be considered a terrorist. The spring was wound tight, meaning that the shorts were going to be faster than normal, Trowa hardly ever needed to use a gun, choosing more to stick with tactics that got him close to his enemy to either knife, or to break their neck. Duo's gun had an elongated barrel, meaning that it was going to need a tighter spring to get past the barrel and be able to make its target with enough force to kill. He changed out the handle to get a better magazine loader, he swiped the one Heero was going to use and switched it out, then swiped the hair trigger from Quatra's weapon. Most of the parts that were in the gun were now littered before him; even things that he hadn't replaced weren't put back on the weapon.

"Maxwell, assemble that weapon correctly. It's not going to fire correctly." Wufei growled at him, noticing how many components weren't being used again.

"It'll fire just fine, Wu-bear." Duo said before he got up.

"Maxwell…" he growled.

"Fine. Let's bet on it." Duo said, fingering his newly built gun.

"Fine by me. I bet you five hundred credits that you cannot hit a target at 200 feet." Wufei said.

"Boring! Make it four hundred feet." Duo said, smiling at him.

"Fine. Four hundred feet. "

"Deal!" Duo chirped before he moved to the targets, grabbing one, he moved to the hall way.

The others looked at each other before scrambling after him. Duo moved to the wall that created a three way turn in the hall. Quatra and Trowa took post at the sides, keeping behind the wall just in case, but keeping position to keep one of the professors from walking in front of Duo's target. Duo moved until a normal person would hardly be able to see the target, let alone hit it.

Wufei stood beside him, arms folded over his chest, feeling very confident that the American wouldn't be able to hit it. Duo looked at the target before turning to Wufei, braid whipping behind him before swinging from the momentum, looking more like a cat's tail than a rope of hair.

"You sure you want to do this bet?" Duo asked, still smiling.

"Just miss the target already, Maxwell." Wufei snarled.

Duo smirked before he lifted the weapon and turned to the wall, firing as soon as his body stopped moving. A loud ping could be heard a split second later, then the metallic clatter of the empty bullet shell hitting the floor at Duo's feet. Duo flicked the safety on as he began to walk, twirling the weapon on his forefinger by the trigger guard. Quatra and Trowa swarmed the target, both staring at it.

"Ha!" Duo exclaimed, smiling as he stepped up to the target and pointed at the bullet hold that resided dead center of the target's bulls eye, "Five hundred credits, Wuffers."

Wufei indignantly let his jaw hit the floor, staring at the newly formed hole until his face turned to one of embarrassed anger as he began to grumble.

"I'll get it from you after we get out of here." Duo purred as he slipped the weapon into his pants pocket and moved past him.

"I told you he was the best shot out of all of us." Heero said from where he was standing near Trowa, "He's never missed a target, at any range."

"He's got to miss sometime!" Wufei growled hotly.

"I've never seen him miss… He used to come over and go hunting with Rashid and the rest of the Maguanacs… He always outshot them, which would end in all of them chasing him through the grounds and up a tree…" Quatra muttered, looking wistful as he had his eyes downcast to the linoleum.

He missed the Maguanacs. He wondered what had ever happened to them. He knew better than to hope that one of them, at least one, would still be around to tell him what happened to the others. They were older than him, even back then, and would've died a long time ago. He missed his family of bodyguards.

"Even without a gun, he's even better with knives." Trowa said, "He used to give Catherine pointers on how to hit her target better. He would crack jokes on her about how she seemed to have a crooked arm, because she would always be off by just a hair… She would try and skewer him, but he was faster than her by a long shot… he's faster than me…"

Wufei frowned before he sighed, folding his arms over his chest indignantly, not liking being bested by the American pilot.

* * *

"01… 02… 04… 03… 05… 06…" J rattled off, tossing them manila folders with a soft thud.

Duo glared at his while the others opened theirs; more curious than anything of whom they were going to be training now. Duo looked over at Heero, who was already reading the details inside his folder, before swiveling his head to the rest of them, who were also poured over theirs, his remained untouched. Long fingers scratched under his braid before picking up the folder and opening it.

He pulled out a few pages of background, history and anything that was documented on the kid with a photo paper clipped to it. The kid was obviously a male, his blond hair was kept to his shoulders, grungy looking, matted, not kept up with at all, his face was dirty, a smudge of pale skin was visible on his left cheek, as if he'd eaten something that was wet and whipped off the dirt in that one spot. His eyes were an icy blue color, glowering at the camera, as if daring it to take his picture, his clothes tattered and torn and the shoulder. The kid looked like how Duo remembered Solo to look.

Pushing the picture up, he began to read.

_Child was found on the streets of L2, picked up for stealing a car._

_Name: Tim (given)_

_Age: Unknown, presumably around eight or nine years._

_Past: Birth place unknown, parents unknown, picked up three times for theft, spotted and identified but never picked up for several incidents of mugging and pit-pocketing, is thought to be a part of a ring of known prostitutes._

_Ailments: None known_

The rest was just the little details of the kid's arrests and confessions, but he was so young at the time, he was released to the Orphanages of L2, and Duo remembered them. If one of their children went missing, no one cared; it was more food for everyone that wanted to be there. Sometimes, the children that wanted to be there would disappear; just to be sure there was enough food.

"Looks like it hasn't changed…" Duo muttered to himself as he set the file aside, staring at the kid that he had to train now.

"I've got a little girl!" Quatra announced, flipping the papers over and over, reading quickly.

"What?! An Onna?!" Wufei squawked, about to start ranting at the fact that he would be working beside a girl.

"You had no problem working beside Sally, Noin, or under Lady Une." Duo said, still reading the file before him.

Wufei glared before turning his heated gaze to his own papers again.

"Now that you have your files, why don't we show you who you'll be working with." G said, making all six heads turn up to him.

The door slid open and seven kids filed into the room, one of which was Ghost himself, the others were around Ghost's age and all looked amazed to be where they were. Duo's eyes looked over each of them in turn.

One boy was diffidently of Chinese decent. His hair was kept short, spiked on top; black eyes looking about the room, sweat pants on his hips, a white t-shirt with a dragon design on it lay on his chest.

Another boy was slightly taller than the first boy, but was shorter than Ghost; his hair was cut short in a military cut, closely buzzed in the back and on the sides, short on top. A button down shirt on his chest, black slacks on his hips and some really nice looking shoes on his feet. Dark green eyes looked to each of them, intelligence shone in those eyes, but he seemed rather shy, and unwilling to go near any of them.

The third was very tall for his age, towering over Ghost by only inches. His ear length hair was a fiery red color, eyes as green as Trowa's, but held a lot more wonder and slight curiousness than anyone's even seen on the tall male's face. He was fashioned with a trench coat over a blue shirt, blue jeans and black shoes.

Duo immediately recognized his own kid, the blond boy was walking in, arms folded over his chest, trying his best to look like he didn't care what was going on while looking around, taking everything in. Duo noticed the subtle twitches in his body, the flick of his fingers under his arm, counting. He was counting the many ways he could escape the room if he needed to, eyes surveying every nook and cranny, taking in every scenario that he could think of.

The girl was behind him. She had long, orange colored hair, her eyes a pale brown color, close to being green, bangs fell into her face, everything but her eyes, cheeks, nose and mouth from the world. She was bundled up the most, even inside the warmth, she was still wearing a sweater, her tan complexion told Duo that she was either used to being outside in the heat, or came from a dessert region where cold only happens once a year. She was wearing the dark blue sweater mentioned before, some thick looking sweat pants and a pair of snow boots on her little feet.

Duo looked to the last kid and almost choked on air. Most of the pilots around him did. Zechs and Wufei both tensed immediately upon spotting the kid coming around the corner. Zechs didn't seem as surprised to see the kid, but his appearance was what startled him, Wufei, on the other hand, paled and seemed like he'd just spotted a ghost.

Dark eyes looked at each of them, looking more bored and dignified than curious. Brown hair was slicked back and still covered in ice. His clothing attire was one of a kid who knew the well rounded life. He wore a dark blue button down shirt with a jacket draped over his shoulders. Dark pants, boots that went over his ankles, a pair of gloves in his pocket told the tale of the travel in the snow.

"Oh, my god! It's Treize!" Duo blurted out, making the kid blink at him as if he was an idiot.

"Yes?" the kid asked, as if wondering if he was saying that for a reason that he should know.

"Oh! Oh! I know which one Zechsy is getting!" Duo called, yelping when Quatra smacked him on the arm, "Owe…"

"Kids, please state your names so everyone here will get to know each other." G said, smiling at Duo's outburst the best he could with his metallic mouth.

"Dragon Uja." The Chinese looking kid said automatically, his pronunciation rolled into Drah-goon instead of the actual word Dragon.

"William Mace." The small boy with the military cut said next.

"Sahara Juhnio." The girl said, smiling at them disarmingly.

"Treize Kushrenada." The look alike said.

"It's even got his name! OW!" Duo yelled, rubbing the spot where Quatra hit him again.

"MacKenzie Friaries." The red headed boy said, sounding bored now.

"Tim…" was all the last blond boy offered up, no last name or anything, his tone rather snobbish now, like he had better things to do than to be here.

"These will be the kids you will train to be the other Gundam pilots along with yourselves. Train them well, for you only have a short time to get them acquainted with everything they should know." G said before he left the room, leaving each pilot to stare at the kid they were supposed to be taking.

"I call Tim!" Duo said, leaping over the table, making the kid he landed before, Tim, to take a few steps back.

"Are you kidding me?!" Time growled, looking Duo over, who was now smirking at him then bent down so he was eye level with him, "Don't patronize me."

Duo rolled his eyes before he folded his arms over his knees, "I'm not talking to a mop of hair, kid."

"My name is Tim."

"I understand that, but what you're now going to have to understand is that if I call you 'kid' it's nothing personal. I'll call all of you that every once and a while." Duo said, smirking still.

Tim's eyes narrowed, as if trying really hard to think of something and to think of it fast, "What's with that hair? It's horrible."

"What's with _your _hair, hm? You ever wash it?" Duo asked, taking up a matted lock that was curled around its self, looking more like a dreadlock than anything else.

Time slapped his hand away, glowering at him, fists clenching and unclenching at his side. He was seriously contemplating punching Duo.

Heero walked around the tables calmly to the kid with the military hair cut, and looked at him.

"You're William?" he asked.

The kid stood his ground, even though his eyes showed nothing but fear of having to look up at the other male as he nodded his little head.

"Yes, sir."

"Good… I'll be the one training you." Heero said, holding his hand out to the kid as the others got to their own kids and introduced themselves.

"Man, why do I get the faggot?" Tim growled, glaring at the floor.

"Luck of the draw, kiddo." Duo said, smiling at him, not even seeming to have heard Tim drop the F-word.

"I highly doubt that you are qualified to be a pilot… I doubt that you're skilled enough to do anything." Tim stated, glaring challengingly at Duo.

"What is this? Test Duo's button's Day?" Duo asked, rolling his eyes before he rubbed the back of his neck, "What can I do to prove to you that I know what I'm doing?"

"Maxwell, you don't have to prove anything to that kid." Wufei said, frowning at the kid a little.

"No, it's okay. If he wants to know if I can teach him how to be a Gundam pilot, I'll show him that I can teach him." Duo said, looking up at the eldest Chinese male before his eyes lit up and a grin broke across the American's face, "Oh! I have the perfect idea."

Tim raised one eyebrow as Duo ripped off the sleeves to the God awful clothes at G had given them to wear. He pulled it into one long strip then tied it around his eyes, making sure to tie it over his braid tightly.

"There we go, fix it as you want, then try to get my wallet." Duo said, face turned to where he remembered Tim standing a few seconds before.

Tim frowned at him before he adjusted the blindfold. Once he was satisfied, he tested it then began to walk around Duo. He was being as quiet as he could, feet not making a single sound, his breathing even seemed to cease a little. Everyone in the room watched apprehensively, waiting for what was going to happen next. Tim checked his pockets, looking for the one that would be containing his wallet. He noted that Duo was right handed and eyed the pocket on the right.

He circled around Duo one more time, as if he was sizing him up, or judging how he was going to go in for the kill. Tim moved silently closer, no one made a sound as Tim's hand flashed. In a blink of an eye, Tim let out a grunt and was suddenly on the ground, an extremely sharp blade pressed to his jugular, and a still blindfolded Duo straddling his small hips. Duo reached up and removed the wrap, looking down at Tim then smiling at him.

"Rule number one, never assume that the wallet is in the victim's pocket." He said, using his free hand he pulled the wallet from somewhere inside his shirt, "Rule number two, don't circle your victim like a shark, one it's time consuming and two, you run too great a risk at being caught by making a noise like that. Rule Three, don't try to pickpocket someone while people are standing around and they know what you're going to do. Some of them over there stopped breathing for a few seconds, I heard it and knew you were starting you're picking.

And finally, rule number four… I grew up on the original L2 streets, where eating live, raw rats was eating fancy, where you had to sleep with both eyes open for fear of being knifed by someone else, just because you are or were part of a gang, does not entail that you are safe from anyone in the world, especially not other street urchins. So, word to the wise… Don't challenge me, you will lose." Duo said, smiling at Tim below him before he withdrew the knife and it disappeared onto his leg somewhere, not even Heero knew it was there before.

Tim swallowed hard as Duo helped him sit up then stand up.

"Do I qualify now?" Duo asked him.

Tim nodded rather dumbly, still shocked at how fast Duo had moved, and how the smallest little details that he'd over looked or ignored were what the taller male used against him to win. Duo held out his hand to Tim, snapping him out of his daze. The blond boy looked at the hand, a little skeptical.

"I won't hurt you." Duo promised, frowning a little when Tim still didn't look convinced that he could take his hand, "My name's Duo, kid. Duo Maxwell, I may run and hide, but I never tell a lie."

Tim looked at him for a few seconds before taking his hand, where Duo gave it a small shake, another grin spreading across his face.

* * *

"I didn't know you had knives." Heero said from where he was sitting on the bed, watching Duo brush his teeth in the joined bathroom in the room they shared.

Duo scrubbed his back molars for a few more seconds, spitting out the suds and rinsing his mouth with water, he let it fall from his mouth then started to rinse his brush, "You never asked."

"Duo, I've been with you since we woke up. Save for a few bathroom trips, you haven't been out of my sight."

"I found them in an old room down the hall. No one seemed to be using them; they were rusted at the hilt, so I cleaned them up, sharpened them down and took them. What's the big deal?" Duo asked as he set his brush where it belonged and moved to see what kind of shampoo the professors had stored away in the room for them.

"The big deal, Duo, is that you pulled a knife on your student, for one thing, and no one else has weapons beside those pistols that were given to us. You found weapons, and are now more heavily armed than us. Why do you feel the need for that?"

"I never said that I felt the need to be armed, Heero. I only ever use guns for when I don't have the time to get close enough for a knife. I grew up with shanks, Heero, having them hidden all over me, knowing where they are, how to use them and that I could get at them at any time makes me feel safe. Besides, Tim was asking what made me qualified, if I didn't show him a little of what I could do, there was no way that little punk was going to trust me to teach him anything."

"You didn't have to prove anything to him, Duo. You could've just told him to shut up and moved on. It was supposed to be as simple as that, but you had to go and make it complicated." Heero growled, glaring at the floor.

"Are you implying that I scared you, Heero?" Duo asked, the light from the bathroom shifting, making Heero look up.

Heero gulped a little as he looked at Duo. He was standing in just his boxers, looking amused and perplexed at the same time, his hair unbound from its braid. It was wavy from the start of where Duo braided it down to the tips that reached only slightly past his ankles, a few more inches and it would touch the ground. Every color in his hair stood out, the slight accent of blond that lightened his hazel hair. Streaks of red took up some space near the base of his skull and more around the strands that sprouted from behind his ears. In the bathroom light, the colors shone off of it, making it look sort of like he had a halo around his head where the most of the lighter colors were.

Heero swallowed hard again before he shook his head, to rid himself of the thoughts that just invaded his psyche, "No, Duo. You didn't scare me, but you did scare that kid. Why do you need to have knives with you to be comfortable? Aren't I enough?"

Duo rolled his eyes at him, "There's that inferiority complex that I was telling you about."

"What?" Heero asked, frowning at his boyfriend.

Duo chuckled then shook his head, folding slender arms over his chest, he leaned his frame against the door's and looked at Heero, "I don't know what's with you, Heero, but for some odd reason, you seem to think that at any time that you aren't good enough for me, or that I will leave you for someone else. News flash for you, Yuy, there's no one else here, for one thing, and another, I wouldn't leave you if my life depended on it."

Heero stared at him for a few seconds before blinking and glaring a bit, "You didn't answer my question."

Duo sighed before waving his hand in a tiny circle, "It's what I'm used to, Heero. I'm used to always having a knife on me, even after the war when we lived together; I always had a knife on me. Why did you think that I would take my shoes off myself no matter what we were doing?"

Heero frowned at him, silently telling him to go on.

"There was a trigger on the side of my left shoe that would open the case on the side of my right high top where I had a hidden knife. It's nothing you should take personally, Heero, after living the mass majority of my life on the streets, then fighting in the war, it was something that made me feel safe."

Heero opened his mouth, looking like he was about to argue when Duo interjected.

"I always took off my shoes when I got into the house, Heero. The knife wasn't on me 24/7, just when I went somewhere. I did trust you, I trusted you to take my shoes off at the door and you wouldn't hurt me. I knew I could leave the knife by the door, and not only would it still be there in the morning, but nothing would happen to me for leaving it there."

Blue eyes blinked in surprise at him before he looked down, processing everything then sighed softly.

"I'm sorry, Duo… It's just this whole thing… I don't know how to act about this. A new war, I'm doing the training this time, the war has spread so far… I was reading the file, humans have colonized as far as Uranus, all of which have at least two million citizens on each colony, and who knows how many soldiers."

Duo watched him from the door way before he closed to distance between them and knelt in between the other's knees, looking up at him, placing his elbows on his knee caps and smiling.

"We'll be alright, Heero. There's now going to be more of us, and soon enough this will come to an end. I mean, it's been thirty years at the least since this war started, the resources have to run out at some point, even if we weren't around to stop it."

Heero glared at him, not getting the joke at all. Duo giggled at him before he shook his head, "All I'm saying is relax, Hee-chan. We'll be able to get everything done that is needed to be done. It's not going to be any different from before, we'll just have to cover more ground, is all."

"That's my biggest problem. There are nowhere near enough of us."

"Are we incompetent?" Duo asked, eyes narrowing at him dangerously.

"No! But, we are by no means prepared for this. At least before we had Trowa's mercenaries when he would find one that was leading a group and owed him one, or we had Quatra's Maguanacs. Now, all we have are what G decides to put in our Gundams, very few, if any weapons, and what we know that's a hundred years out dated."

Duo shifted, leaning his head on his elbows before he rolled his eyes, "That never stopped us before. Think of it, Heero… Five teenagers, some, if not all, of us not even old enough to vote on Earth and the Colonies, none of us old enough to purchase alcohol. Hell, we shouldn't have even known how to pilot, but we, namely you, single handedly put a stop to every single war. You almost killed yourself, and saved Earth from being annihilated by a falling Colony. You almost killed yourself again to blow apart a fortress to get at the villains. We can handle it, Heero."

The other shook his head, looking away, as if not believing a word he spoke.

"Ahh… I get it… Come on, Hee-chan. Stand up." Duo said, motioning for him to get up as he hoisted himself up with Heero's legs then steadied his feet, turning to face Heero.

The Japanese male frowned at him before he got to his feet, only to grunt when Duo had snuck up to him and pushed him back onto the bed. He looked up at his lover, confusion on his face as to why he did that.

"Come on. Get up." Duo coaxed, smiling as if he'd done nothing.

Heero climbed to his feet again, blanching this time when he was pushed again but still didn't catch himself in time to not land on the bed. Cobalt blue eyes glared at smiling violet as he moved to get up again. He twisted around to avoid Duo's hands, only to gasp as his legs were kicked out from under him, sending him to his side with a hard thud on the ground below.

"Come on, Hee-chan." Duo purred, head tilted a little bit.

Heero glared hard at him before he swept his own leg out, pushing himself toward Duo when the slimmer male leapt over his legs. He grabbed him by the thighs, pulling while he climbed to his feet. Duo blanched out then arched forward, grabbing Heero's shoulders and hoisting himself out of his arms. He swung himself to the side, landing on the floor, letting his knees bend down as Heero's hand darted out, to grab at his hair or shirt.

Duo arched up, grabbing Heero's wrist and pushing it up, twisting his body on the balls of his feet as Heero's other hand went to grab him when the first one couldn't. Duo took up that wrist in his other hand and pulled his arms to his side, Heero's arms crossing over his chest and pulling him close, looking almost like he was hugging the smaller male. Duo turned his head, nuzzling against his exposed neck.

"You're slow, Hee-chan." He purred in his ear, smiling when he felt the other squirm but couldn't get loose.

"I am not…" Heero muttered sourly.

Duo chuckled before he released his arms, "its okay, Heero. That's what the training it going to be for. We'll just have to do extra work while training those kids. I'm slower than normal, too."

Heero blinked, "You are not." He growled.

"I am… before I never wouldn't have had to bend my knees, I would've been able to dodge it, but I couldn't. We'll train together." Duo purred, leaning against him.

Heero's gaze was now pinpointed on the ground, processing everything then he shook his head, "This is… going to be impossible."

Duo laughed before turning and putting his arms around Heero's neck, and pressed their foreheads together, "Never say never, Hee-chan."

* * *

How is it so far? Good, bad, horribe? Would love to know!


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, save for maybe the plot and a few OCs, but not the G-boys, any names that you will probably recognize.

Author's note: Terribly sorry about the last chapter. The thing kept deleting my boarders and I didn't realize it until I'd uploaded it. School is about to start again, meaning that I'm going to have very little if any time to update on a day to day basis as I've been doing lately. I might be able to update every Friday night, but I don't promise anything, since I don' tknow what life is going to throw at me next.

There have been a few requests, made by Foxgoddess, if I remember correctly, that I make a chapter where it was just the point of view of the person who thawed out the pilots. Small confession here, I have a lot of trouble getting out of the first person mind set once I am in it. I tend to say that I'm going to do only one chapter like that then suddenly, seven chapters later, I'm doing first person still. I might do it later, but right now, I am not going to. Sorry.

As always, enjoy.

* * *

"We've heard this arguement a few times already."

"Then why do we seem to be insistant on doing this? It's not right, you acknowledge that it's not right, yet we're still allowing it."

"We don't have much of a choice."

"So that makes it right instead? That's a coward's excuse!"

There was silence. Ghost moved to look into the 'Mission Room', as Duo had dubbed it. All of the pilots were sitting around a round table, wrap around couch in red poliester material built around it, and provided seats for the boys. He'd been listening to them argue for over an hour. It didn't start out that way, they were talking about how they were going to train, what they were going to train, then it came to the subject of interogation training, and Duo lost all rationality in his voice. Ghost felt a tug on his sleeve and pulled into the hall again, making sure no one saw him do it.

"What are they saying?" Sahara asked, not wanting to be the one to evesdrop so she stuck to being a nag against the wall.

"Duo's still pissed that they're thinking of training us in interogation..." Ghost explained the best he could.

"I still don't see what his problem is." Dragon muttered softly, kneeling next to Sahara, frowning a little bit.

"The problem is that if they are going to do that, they are going to be doing some pretty... mean things to us." Ghost said, trying to explain it so all of them would be able to understand him. They weren't all trained as he was.

Ghost turned back into the room, gasping as Sahara let out a startled yell, and the others jumped as the pilots had appeared out of nowhere before them, all wearing different levels of scown on their face.

"Don't evesdrop." Duo growled at them, arms folded over his chest, eyes narrowed at each of them.

They all looked up at him, before their eyes traveled to the respective teacher.

"Are you going to do the interogation stuff with us?" Ghost asked, not even bothering to pretend like he hadn't been listening to them.

Duo glanced at the other pilots, his face taking on a whole new emotion of disdain and slight disgust. The only one that seemed to notice was Quatra, who looked over his shoulder at Duo, a sad look in his eyes.

"Yes. It's going to be apart of the program, but it will be a while before we get to that part of the training. Go." Heero grunted, indicating for them to leave.

The kids scrambled out of the hallway, leaving only a trail of dust after them. Duo scowled even more before he pushed past the other pilots before rounding to them again.

"I am not doing it. You can forget it. If my kid sells us out, so what? We were around a hundred years ago, who the fuck is going to believe him, and on top of that, I never had to go through that training, I've never wanted to go through that training, and guess what, I'm not going to force it onto a child."

"Maxwell, be reasonable. The only one who's ever been through it completely is Yuy and-"

"And look what had happened to him! He turned into more of a machine than Wing was. It might not have been the only thing done to him, but it was probably one of the major things. It's not going to happen again, and I'm not going to be the one to do it."

"It wasn't that bad, Duo." Heero growled, eyes narrowing at the long haired pilot.

Duo narrowed his own eyes, the violet darkening dangerously before he rolled his eyes, "What ever, Heero. The next time you blow your happy little ass up in your Gundam to escape being capture, you tell me that it wasn't that bad."

The five watched as Duo left them, stomping down the hall, more than a little passed about what they'd decided. He slipped through the place as quiet as air, and into the hanger with the mechas, or what would become the mechas once the parts got here. Violet eyes looked up at the useless form of Deathscythe, sighing softly before he looked around the hanger once more. There were airplanes everwhere, all decomissioned but...

Duo smiled, noticing that all of them still had their engens in them.

An hour later found Duo straddling the thermal scythe from his buddy. He had tools littered around him, a sodering iron, an electrical iron, a wrench, a screw driver, and a few other things that would be needed to change the wires in the useless weapon.

"What are you doing?" came the becoming familiar voice beside him.

"One of two things." Duo said as he shifted his fingers into the small crevice that made the wiring panel was dug into, "Either I'm going to blow us all up, and have that one hundred year old sleep be worthless, or I'm going to repair this scythe and have it working as it's suppose to do."

Ghost tipped his head before he got on his knees and swept the tools to him, looking at them.

"Wish to help me out?" Duo asked, his voice a little muffled as he pushed himself actually into the blade so only his lower half was visible from the large metalic thing.

"Sure."

"Good. Heat up that soddering iron, I'm going to need it in a few seconds."

Ghost nodded before blinking when there was a thunk from inside the scythe and Duo swore loudly, pullingo ut and holding the wide of his head.

"Sonnova bitch..."

Ghost smiled before he actually giggled a bit. Duo looked over at him, a frown forming on his face then dismissed what he was thinking and went back to what he was doing.

* * *

Five hours later, the door to the hide out opened and Heero moved into the museum portion of of the place, frowning when laughter reached his ears. He kept quiet as he moved to Wing's leg and hid behind it, watching Duo and Ghost work on something on the floor.

"And then?" Ghost prompted, handing Duo the pliers, the American was on his back, half in the scythe.

"Then what? I told you. Wufei, pink hair and all, was so pissed at me that he chased me into the street and down five blocks before he realized that there were people around, staring at him."

Ghost sniggered, "Ever pull pranks on Heero?"

Heero smirked before he sat on the ground, starting to listen.

"Of course. Once, I put a cup of bleach in the washer with his spandex then put it on high. It shredded them and bleached them down."

Heero smirked as he remembered that. It wasn't one of his favorite memories but it was something that always made him smile and think of Duo when he saw the machine tore a thing of his clothes. Duo was very hyperactive back then, and sometimes still was but he'd toned down so much. He would also be so closed off from the world, even him, that he would lock himself away for days on end, his depression too much for him. Duo being Duo, he didn't want anyone to see him like that and worry, so he would hide away.

"Duo, what's the matter with you? You aren't like the other pilots."

Duo sighed before he pulled himself out of the scythe, "There's nothing the matter with me... I just... never thought that I would live forever like this. It's kind of scary..."

"You have a problem with training us? You don't want to fight this war?"

"I don't have a problem with you all, so don't think that, but I don't want to fight this war."

"Why not? I would figure an ex-Gundam pilot would want to do what he was known for again." Ghost said softly.

"I grew up in war. It's all I've ever known, really. I've seen people die either by my own hands or in front of me all of my life. I was okay with it when I was younger, because it was all natural to me. To me, death and war was my life, it was normal. Then I met the others when I became a pilot and noticed everything they did to themselves in order to be able to fight. Wufei became obsessive, Quatra worried himself into comas, Trowa closed himself off, and Heero... Heero didn't think that his mission was a success unless he was injured, everything was destroied in a seventeen mile radius, or he was dead himself..."

"Heero's special to you."

Duo sighed softly and nodded, "Yeah... He is. To me... Sometimes I'm not so sure about what he thinks about me. He's opened up so much more since the war but... he's always so closed off now adays. It's like that he's always listening for the W word, that he's always waiting for his chance to go at it again, to try and kill himself again. I feel like I don't matter to him, that all that matters is his mission, and his chance to do something that he didn't do in the first or the second war."

Heero felt a coldness spread through his chest, a deep scowl on his face as he thought of what Duo had said, the same cold feeling attaching Ghost as well, his head tilted before he fiddled with a tool.

"Don't feel bad, little man. He'll learn this time around, maybe."

"If you didn't want this, then why did you say yes?" Heero asked from where he was sitting.

Ghost jumped three feet, not noticing the other was there at all, but Duo didn't seem surprised, a smile gracing his grave looking features.

"Because I didn't have a choice." he said softly, getting off the scythe.

Heero glared and got up, moving around Wing and turning his sights to Duo. Ghost winced at the look on his face before scampering off somewhere.

"Didn't have a choice?! You always have a choice, Duo, and you know that! If you didn't want to do that sleeping process, then why did you do it?!"

Duo studied the ground for a bit, foot scraping the bottom before he sighed softly, "Because..." he said clipticly.

"You don't have a reason, you're just pissed because we've got to do something that might be right! You're angry that we're going to actually have to do _work_again for the colonies and Earth, and you don't like it!" Heero growled before blanching when furious violet eyes turned to him.

"I said yes to that shit because you did, you selfish, arrogant fucking bastard!" Duo snarled, suddenly in Heero's face, invading his space, "I told you before we left that if I didn't like what they were talking about, we were leaving that place and talking it over. _YOU,_you... you... AURGH! You asshole, you didn't even think it over, you didn't discuss it with me, like you promised that you would! You heard J, _fucking J_, ask if anyone was interested and you jumped on it!"

"You could've said no! You could've backed out!" Heero shot back.

Duo looked at him before he shook his head, "I told you, on our first anniversary, the first time we had a small bout of you being insecure about us, that I would never leave you. I wouldn't let you be alone, I wouldn't let you go to bed alone, and you promised the same fucking thing to me. To _me_, Heero! You promised, and you jumped on something that would take you away from me if I said no!"

Cobalt blue eyes blinked as violet turned down, sadness and dispair clouding the beautiful color.

"I told you... I confided in you... that I didn't want to be left alone again... I don't do well alone, Heero, and you jumped on something without asking me if I wanted to do it... truthfully, Heero, it felt like you wanted to leave me, like you didn't want me anymore."

"Duo, that's not it at all and-"

"Then why? Why would you do that to me? Why would you force me into that, and not even care what I was thinking or what I wanted? I would've been less hurt if you just broke up with me and dissapeared, really."

Heero stared at him before he shook his head, "I'm sorry, Duo... I just... I was feeling so useless, just sitting there. Doing nothing all day long. I wanted something to do, I wanted to be useful again but no one seemed to need me. Then they offered this and... it was like being offered a job I truely longed for and had been denied for years. I leapt at the opertunity to do so, to do what I wanted to do. You are right, I was being selfish and a baka. I didn't mean to, if that's anything."

Duo shook his head, braid flicking behind him, "You could've told me, Heero. I knew that you were bored and unhappy, but you could've atleast talked to me, seen what I wanted in life before making a decission that would effect the both of us, and not console me. I would've been fine with this, Heero, if we'd talked about it. I was... hurt, Heero. I truely was, and you didn't seem to care about what I was feeling, or what I was thinking at the time."

"I'm sorry..."

Duo pushed himself to him, holding him to himself and sighing softly, " I know you are, Hee-chan..."

"You... really don't want to be in this war?"

Duo sighed and shook his head, "No, I don't, but I will, Heero. I didn't want to be in the first one either, but I was in it, I fought it and I made the best of what I could with it."

Heero nodded before he frowned a little, "Are you going to stop taking your frustration twords me out on the kids and train Tim properly?"

Duo groaned and pushed away from him, "Really, Heero? I am not the type of person to take out my frustrations about another on someone else... I'm still not doing the interogation training. I never needed it."

"Because you grew up on the streets, Duo. We've picked this kid up earlier than you were picked up. He might not know as much as you do."

"I'm not falling for that, Heero. I'm not doing it. That kid grew up on L2 like I did. I don't know how much better, worse or the same L2 is, but I'm sure that Tim will be just fine. I'll train him in things that he needs to know to pilot and that is it." Duo said as he pulled away from Heero and squated down to get back to work on the scythe.

Heero sighed before he knelt down then moved to his ass as Duo began to work again.

* * *

"I'm worried about Duo." Quatra muttered softly as he watched Trowa show him how to disassemble a weapon.

"What Maxwell does is none of our business unless it effects us." Wufei said, slightly breathless as he practiced and worked on his martial arts moves.

"But this might effect us." Trowa said as he set aside the last part and let Quatra take over reassembling.

"What do you mean?" Zechs asked from where he was practicing his own form of training arts.

"There's something off about him. He's tired and spacing a lot, and I don't think it has something to do with the whole sleeping process." Quatra said as he put the gun back together.

"The drugs would effect Maxwell differently. He's always had a different reaction to drugs." Wufei said, starting his cool down routine.

"It has nothing to do with the drugs. He's not acting like he's under the influence of anything he's... just off." Quatra explained, slidding the last component home.

"What do you propose we do, Winner?" Wufei asked, watching Trowa flip the gun over in the blond's hand and indicate for him to dissassemble it now.

"Keep an eye on him is all that we can do for now. Someone should be with him at all times, at least until he starts feeling better."

"When are the Gundams going to be assembled?" Zechs asked.

"What do you care? You don't have one." Wufei snapped at him, glaring hard.

Zechs looked at him before he rolled his eyes, "Scared, dragon?" he asked, smiling a little more when Wufei bristled.

"Scared of what? You!? Please! Maxwell poses more of a threat to me than you, Marquise."

The long haired blond chuckled at him before he shook his head and turned to what he was doing once more. Quatra looked over at the two before he frowned a bit and returned to his weapon training.

"I'll be sure that he's not alone, little one." Trowa volunteered.

Quatra looked up at him before he smiled, "I know you will. Thank you. I'm just worried, that's all…"

Trowa nodded as he got up, giving the blond's shoulder a slight squeeze then moving off to do something else.

* * *

What's Quatra mean about Duo? What's going to happen next. Find out in the next chapter!

Duo: Boy, that's kinda corny, don't you think?

Shut up, no one asked you, baka.

Heero: {points gun at Ardra's head}

{sweatdrop} No baka? DON'T KILL ME! I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TOO BAD YET!!!

{runs away}


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, save for maybe the plot and a few OCs, but not the G-boys, any names that you may recognize in this fiction.

* * *

"See, I told you that it was still there." Quatra said, pointing over Duo's shoulder at a map of the Moon.

J was the only one with a functioning, internet accessible computer, so all of the original boys snuck into his room to use it. It wasn't a hard thing to do, it was just tedious because the traps and locked he had on his door required the same thing to open. It was a dismal thing and actually made Heero flinch to see. The man that taught him about random passwords for everything wasn't applied to himself, wasn't even considered a good security measure with that man/robot/thing.

They all came to an agreement a few hours ago that they would move from the arctic base as soon as the parts for the Gundams arrived. They didn't want to be doing to massive training inside a base that was mostly a museum. Quatra offered one of the training bases that his family had been starting before he went under for the Preventers to use. Wufei had said the building wouldn't have been finished and kept around after he was gone, since the mass majority of his family were pacifists and wouldn't allow something like that be made with their money.

"How is that possible?" Wufei grumbled as he looked at the slight picture of the building, only just happening to be in the picture because of the satellite that took its picture.

"I left the process, construction and all the finances with Rashid... He had everything when I went under. I hope he used it to live well..." Quatra said, eyes softening into sadness, his voice taking on a more wistful quality.

"Don't worry yourself with those kinds of thoughts, Q-man... Knowing Rashid and the other Maguanacs, they put your money somewhere it could accumulate interest and made it so that only you would be able to get at it when you needed it." Duo said as he studied the picture.

"That's what worries me." Quatra murmured, stepping back into the pull Trowa was administering to his shirt and into his arms.

"Okay, so these coordinates, all we'd have to do is get a plane, get off this desolate waste land, steal a shuttle and head up there... Doesn't sound hard." Duo said, his head resting on his hand, thinking hard.

"Now is not the time for jokes, Maxwell."

"If now is not the time, when is?"

"Maxwell." Wufei growled, making violet eyes roll before he got up from the computer and walked off.

He really wasn't surprised when no one asked where he was going, what he was going to do or anything. It seems, with the start of a new war comes new ways to ignore Maxwell. He moved into the kitchen, frowning at his train of thought. He didn't want to think that the others would ignore him or anything but he wouldn't put it past them at this point. He poured himself some coffee, poured a small drop of creamer and only one packet of sugar into it before he stirred it, sipping at it to test the flavor, grimacing at the horrible, strong taste. He hated black coffee, he hated half assed coffee just as much, but Heero told him the first coffee/caffeine/sugar rush he caught him on, he would be banned from the liquid forever. He truly missed how he used to be able to joke around the others, how he could be the smiling idiot everyone needed.

Now, they knew that he wasn't always like that. They'd saw the small glimpses of the real Duo Maxwell, so there wouldn't be a reason to hide behind his joker mask anymore.

'You know that's not true... We can still pull it off. They won't care, and by the time they realize something is up, we'll be too far gone. Everyone else is taking up their old war personas, why not us?'

Duo scowled at that voice in his head, he hated it but it was the only one he'd never been able to get rid of. It always reminded him that he would always be the one that craved the contact that Heero gave him, craved the family setting all of them had given him before. It reminded him that no matter what he did, they would always think of him as the smiling, annoying, boisterous American that annoyed the shit out of them during the war.

'When was the last time we went to sleep with Heero beside us? How many times have we woken up to find him already up and working with the kids?'

Duo sighed softly as he set his coffee cup aside, using his finger to trace the pattern in the table. It couldn't hurt to become the joker again. He could do it. Keep him at a distance as he used to.

"Going to be difficult with Heero…" Duo murmured softly, to himself.

'Not if you just put out when he wants it.'

"Che… No." Duo grumbled before his gaze training on what he traced with his finger, his gaze kept him spaced for a few minutes then a soft sigh escaped his lips and he sat up.

He stretched his arms forward, the joints popping back into place before he straightened straight up, his spine realigning with a barrage of pops that only he could hear, and a wave of absolute pleasure springing up his back. He sighed softly, he opened his eyes and a large grin broke across his face.

"No problem." He said softly before he got up and sauntered down the hall.

Shinigami was back in town, no one was safe now.

* * *

"The parts have to be formatted for your Gundams. It'll take a while and in that time, I'll get started on the new projects." G said before he started down the way he came in the hall.

"Whoa, wait, Pesty, what project?" Duo asked, head tilted as he played with a wire from the large pile of mechas parts.

"You think that you are going to be training these kids and they aren't going to have their own Gundams?" G asked.

"How did you get all the Gundanium?"

"The same way I got it the first time. It might be old, but the Sweepers are still useful." G said, pausing when the sound of metal hitting the floor assaulted the silence.

"The Sweepers are still around?" Duo asked.

"Of course, boy."

"Who…?"

"Howard. You think I would let my best connection just disappear in time?"

Duo smirked at him before he flicked his braid over his shoulder, "I guess not, but I never figured Howie would go through with something like that."

"He didn't have a choice at the time." G snickered.

"Hey… Bird-man… you think Howie would do me a favor? For old time's sake?"

"Depends on what you want." G said, turning his attention to the long haired male.

"I want to take Deathscythe, and disappear." He said, fingering the weapon's components.

"I thought you and 01 had a thing." G said, frowning at him.

"We do but… he's not interested right now, and I don't want to be around while they're training those kids in ways that I don't agree with."

"You are going to take your kid, train him with you?" G asked, frowning.

"I was planning on it. I was kind of hoping I could get the old CD from our training methods."

"The computer modules?" G asked.

Duo nodded as he leaned against the pile, resting his chin on cold metal that sent shivers down his spine.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt. Just make sure that you don't blow yourself up while making those bombs." G growled.

Duo chuckled before he flicked G the bird, "You know I haven't done so yet."

"First time for everything, 02." G said as he slipped off.

"So I've heard." Duo muttered before he looked down at the stuff again, considering his options.

With a soft sigh, he pushed himself from the materials and into the main part of the building.

* * *

"What?!"

"I'm… leaving, Heero. I'm not going to stand around and have my training style dictated for me. This kid was supposed to be mine to train, and I'm not going to just sit here and take it just because you're one of the people stuffing this shit down my throat." Duo said an offhand smile on his face, his back to Heero so he couldn't see his face.

"You're… just leaving? Like that?" Heero asked his voice low.

"Tomorrow. I've got someone coming to pick me up, and once I've been dropped off with Tim and Deathscythe, they're going to come and take you guys to the moon…"

"You're just going to leave?! Leave us? Leave the others? … Leave me? After you promised?" Heero asked, the glare he had on his face was now predominant in his voice.

"I see it as, you haven't kept up with your promises, and then why should I?" Duo asked, rolling his eyes a little as he finished packing his duffle bag.

"Promises? I've kept all of my promises." Heero growled at him.

"Oh, really? Where were you last night, Heero? I went to eat dinner, I ate alone. I went to bed, I fell asleep alone. I felt you come to bed much later than I did, and when I woke up, you were already gone." Duo growled back at him.

Heero blushed slightly before he shook his head, "That was one nigh-"

"We haven't had sex since the shuttle ride to L2… one hundred years ago, Heero. Even then, it was just you giving me a blow job. You don't want to be around me, I know you don't, Heero. You don't like that I won't train Tim the way you want to. You want me to just basically hand him to you and be done with it."

Heero shook his head, hard, "That's not it at all. You are the best in a lot of things, Duo, but your personal issues are keeping you from doing what you need to do for this kid to be the best pilot that he can be."

"You make it sound like this is something that anyone can do, Heero. It's not. I know what I'm doing and the fact that you think that I wouldn't do what I could, within my own personal reasoning, to make sure this kid will survive this war shows me that you don't fucking trust me!"

"What are you yelling about now, Maxwell?" came Wufei's voice as he entered the kitchen, frowning as he saw Heero's frustrated features and Duo's own angry ones, "What's going on?"

"He's leaving. He's going to disappear with Deathscythe, the parts for it, and Tim." Heero snarled, his glare intensifying as Duo rolled his eyes.

"Maxwell?"

"Oh, shove it, Wuffers. I don't want to hear it. You and he are one of my biggest problems around here." Duo snarled as he went back to packing ration bars for himself and Tim.

"Problems?"

"Yes, problems, Wu-bear. Neither of you trust me, after everything we've been through together, you still don't think that I'm cut out to do what I know how to do."

"So you're going to just leave? Where are you going to go?"

"I haven't decided yet, and even if I had, I wouldn't tell you guys. That would kind of defeat the purpose of getting away from you guys."

"Getting away from us?"

Duo turned to see the other three standing there. Trowa frowning at him, Zechs looking perplexed and Quatra looking absolutely stricken.

"Duo… why?" he asked softly.

"Because… you guys either don't trust me, or you don't want to. Either way, I'm not wanted here." Duo said as he tied off his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

"What?! How could you think that? You're apart of us, Duo." Quatra cried, tears welling into his eyes.

"Hm… let's see. Two reasons. One, you guys won't let me train as I want to, as I've mentioned to these two bakas, and two… it's something between Heero and myself."

"He thinks that I'm neglecting him." Heero growled softly.

"Well, when you put it that way, after I said it was between you and me, let's just randomly have make up sex right in the kitchen!" Duo snarled.

Heero glared at his choice of words before he threw up his hands and got to his feet, "What do you want from me, Duo? You want me to smother you or something?"

"I want you to be like how you used to be! Before all this shit! I worked for almost a full year, non-stop to get you to be normal, like you _wanted to be _and you revert back to how you used to be the second you learn there's a war out there! This is the same thing I was talking about back at the hanger, Heero! You're working yourself up so much over this war that you're reverting back to that Perfect Soldier persona that you promised me you wouldn't revert to if we went into this shit! You knelt down and told me that you would try not to be that way anymore, and instead of doing that you did exactly what you said you wouldn't."

"That has nothing to do with any of this!" Heero growled.

"Yes it does! You're going to kill yourself the first opportunity that you get! You're going to do anything you can to leave me, so I'm going to do it for you. Move, Barton." Duo snarled, stomping towards Trowa, only to gasp as hands grabbed a hold of him and forced him to the ground.

Heero straddled his hips, Wufei grabbed on hand and held it above his head, Quatra grabbed the other on, holding it off the ground and away from his braid, and Zechs knelt a little on one of his legs while Trowa held down the other one.

"Get off! What the hell?!" Duo snarled, struggling against the five of them.

"Not until you listen to us." Heero growled, placing his hands at Duo's sides, glaring down at him, refusing to let his body twist like it wanted to, if this was a different situation, this would be turning him on.

"Why?" Duo growled softly.

"Because we're worried about you, Duo, and this isn't like you." Quatra said softly.

"Oh, and what's more like me?" Duo asked, glaring at him.

"For one, you're glaring at us. You've never done that." Trowa muttered.

"Two, you're jumping to conclusions without talking about things first." Heero said, frowning at him.

Duo blinked at him before he growled, "And? Everyone else can change but I can't?"

"You're changing into something that you weren't even before the first war, Duo. You've never been like this." Wufei said, looking at him as he pressed his knee gently onto his wrist, "You haven't argued with me since we've woken up, you haven't pulled any pranks, you haven't gone to mess around with the kids like we all were sure that you were going to do. There's something going on with you, Duo."

Duo stopped struggling, blinking at him. He called him by his first name… twice…

"I don't get it… I don't feel like there's something wrong, besides the way you guys are treating me." Duo muttered.

"And since when has that ever been something to hold you back? You would've just flipped us off and did what you wanted without leaving." Trowa said softly.

"You've been spacing out since the unfreeze, Duo. There's something going on and we have to find out what because if you space during a mission or something, it could be the end of you…" Quatra said softly, sounding truly afraid.

Duo shook his head, denying what they were saying.

"Promise us, Shinigami promise us, that you won't leave until we've got everything figured out. Please, Duo?" Heero asked, looking down at him.

Violet eyes studied him before he seemed to deflate a little, his eyes looked away, narrowing as all they could only see one of the others. He wanted to run, he wanted to hide, anything to get away from these guys. He didn't want to be trapped like this.

"Will you get off me now?" Duo grumbled, almost sighing as the four on his appendages', leaving only Heero on his stomach.

"We care about you, Duo. We know there's something going on with you and we want to help." Quatra said softly.

Duo rolled his eyes before he sat up, shoving Heero down his legs and pulled them out from under the Japanese male, scowling softly, "What ever. If I'm staying, then you guys better start letting me do things the way I want to do them, I swear I'll leave the first chance I get."

Stunned faces stared at him, surprised on all their faces. It would seem that now, in the midst of everything, Duo was becoming fed up with them, with everything that they used to do. He wasn't going to take them treating him like they had been. Duo got to his feet, dropped the bag of food on the table and left the room. He made certain to close the door behind him.

"He's really going to leave…" Quatra murmured softly, sounding hurt.

"No, he's not." Heero growled softly, fists clenched.

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, Yuy, but it might be possible that he will. We'll have to do anything that we can to make sure that he doesn't leave." Wufei muttered softly.

"Like what?"

"Maybe actually treating him the way he's suppose to be treated." Zechs muttered, not even flinching at the glare from Heero, the scorn from Wufei, the shocked expression from Quatra and the emotionless one from Trowa.

"What does that mean? What does he wanted to be treated like?" Wufei asked.

"It's not what he wants to be treated as, its how he's supposed to be treated. This isn't the same war as before. You've all had the time and the opportunity to be normal kids again, and it looks like Duo was the leading on to go that route while you all stayed back a little."

"So he wants us to treat him like a civilian?" Heero asked.

"No, he wants you to treat him like the human that he is, and not the soldier he used to be. You've all been treating him the way you think that he should be treated. Whatever progress you made with him during the war, you've probably lost it all if he's willing to run." Zechs explained, arms folded over his chest.

"What are we going to do? Go out to the movies with him? Party like hell, get plastered then live with hang over for days after?" Wufei all but snarled out.

"You are always raving about the injustice that people suffer because of war, how they aren't being stood up for or treated the way they should be. Maybe you should try practicing what you preach, Chang.

The long haired blond left the four stunned pilots where they stood, contemplating his words in their heads.

--

"Have I been unfair to Maxwell?" Wufei asked after a few minutes.

"We all have been." Trowa muttered softly.

"I've ignored him in favor of this war…" Heero muttered softly, having moved from where he had been standing to where he was now sitting in a chair, his body bent as he laid his elbows on his knees, "Even after he told me that he wasn't happy with how I've been acting towards him. It wasn't even a week ago he told me that he was unhappy with things, especially how I've been reverting back to my old ways. Told me it hurt him to see me like this… and I continued."

"I've been avoiding him…" Trowa muttered softly from where he was leaning against the wall, "I've made myself scarce when I knew where he was, or somewhere that he might've been. When I do happen to run into him, I walk faster, hoping to get by before he notices that I'm there. I think that he knew I did that."

"Why?" Wufei asked.

"I was afraid he would try to talk to me about how things used to be. I didn't want to talk about it. I was trying to forget how everything was, and this new war was bringing up some bad memories that I had tried to forget about… He never tried to talk about it."

Quatra nodded solemnly before he sighed and pressed his hand to his chest, "I've been blocking him out. His emotions have always been so extreme. He was always incredibly happy, or extremely depressed. I started blocking his emotions from myself more than I do with all of you all. Now, as I'm looking for his emotions, it's like he has none anymore. He's blocking me now. I can't sense him, I can't find him… He knew what I was doing, and decided to do it for me now… Oh, Allah, how could we let it get this far?"

"Because we were selfish." Heero said, running his fingers through his ruffled hair, "We've been so consumed with our own demons, ghosts and dead that were coming back to the surface, that we've refused to see the other's pain, and completely blocking out someone who needed our help more than anything than ever."

"Do you think that it's too late?" Wufei asked, sounding almost scared.

"The only way we'll know is if we go to him…" Heero said before he got to his feet and left the room with the others following after him.

* * *

"Be very careful. It's very delicate at this point, but past this you can make it into anything. Timed, instant, fire stick, anything." Duo explained softly as he showed Tim how to construct a homemade bomb.

"What will happen if we do something wrong?" Tim asked, watching as trained fingers created separators for the liquids.

"This whole base will be up in smoke." Duo muttered softly before he sealed off the paper over the liquids and stuffed it into a wax molding of a candle, "There we are."

"Cool." Tim hissed as he took the candle and began to examine it.

"Careful. Like I said, it's very delicate at this point and could blow up by accident." Duo muttered softly, moving and sitting down in a chair that was in the room.

"Can we set it off?" Tim asked excitedly, setting it down carefully.

Duo chuckled before he shook his head, "No. There's nowhere to do so. I'll show you some more, we'll get some more practice in, and we'll set some off once we leave this place. It's too small for this."

Tim nodded before a noise at the door caught his attention. The other four pilots were filing into the room the two were in. Tim grew tense, as did Duo, as the others gathered around a little. A small gasp came from Quatra, his eyes widened slightly and his hand moved from where it had been hanging to clutch at his chest.

"We're done, Tim. You can go." Duo said, smiling ruefully as the boy wasted no time in scampering out of the room. It would seem that all of the kids were still somewhat afraid of all of them when they were in the group.

"Duo." Heero started, looking down a little, as if unsure of where to start.

"We're sorry." Trowa started for him, watching Duo's reaction to the apology.

"For what?" Duo asked, no reaction seeming to be coming from him.

"For treating you like we had been." Wufei explained, moving his hands over his chest, the most defensive position that he had.

Duo looked at them before he sighed softly, "You're forgiven…" he said softly.

"No, we aren't. We'll do better from now on, Duo." Quatra said, stepping forward to the other male.

Duo lifted his head to them before he smiled a small bit, "Really?"

"We'll only treat you like a bumbling idiot when you act like one." Wufei said, blinking as Duo laughed loudly at him.

"Promise, Wuffers?" Duo asked, sniggering softly.

The others snickered as well before nodding; the only one who wasn't laughing was Heero. He looked a little solemn and impatient, waiting for something. The rest of the pilots talked to Duo for a few minutes before they all left, leaving Heero to be with Duo alone. Duo looked up at him before he shifted a little.

"What's up, 'Ro?" he asked, gasping when Heero was suddenly beside him.

"I don't know. I promised that I would do better and I didn't. I didn't mean to make you mad…"

"I know you didn't, but you have to understand that I wasn't going to stick around while you tried to figure it out."

Heero looked down, taking a seat beside the other, "I know you weren't going to now… I was being selfish, thinking that you would always be there for me and didn't need anything yourself… I was wrong, dead wrong. I shouldn't have done that to you. You deserve far better…"

Duo looked at him, violet eyes clouded over a little before he leaned forward and pressed his lips to his forehead, placing a feathered kiss to his temple then pulling away only inches from him, "I wasn't going to leave you, Heero, just your presence. I needed you to either burn yourself out and find me, or figure it out yourself. Looks like you figured it out yourself."

Heero looked down before he shook his head, "No… Zechs yelled at us… I would've hunted you down, though."

Duo smiled a little before he shook his head, "Not until after I was too far gone for even you to find, Heero."

Heero smiled a little. He knew the truth better than anyone, really. If Duo didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be found. He could make himself disappear so well, that it would be like he just dropped off the face of the Earth and Colonies. Heero remembered once, many, many years ago, he'd gotten into a small row with Duo.

The thinner male had disappeared for a week and no matter how hard Heero searched for that whole entire week, he hadn't found him until Duo knocked on the apartment door. Heero, not only amazed, but relieved gathered him up and pulled him into the house, holding onto him like he would disappear again. Duo had only chuckled at him and told him he'd gone to the hotel next door.

Talk about rubbing salt in the wound. Not only had Heero checked there, but he even stood outside the hotel entrance for seven hours, waiting to see if Duo had gone in there and he hadn't seen him. Since then, Heero knew that Duo surviving the war with only being captured once wasn't a fluke at all. Duo wasn't a liar, but he was so good a deceiving people with just a smile and a few jokes. He could take a spoon, a coil from the stove, the bleach from the washing room, and the agitator from the washing machine and use them to make a powerful explosive; he was the master of explosives.

He could take simple things… like the wires from an ancient decommissioned airplane and completely rebuild the scythe for his beloved Deathscythe, and it would even work. Most of all, he could worm his way into anyone's heart with just a few smiles and a few brotherly jesters. He was the best friend anyone could ever ask for. He'll joke and laugh with you one minute, then shoot down anyone who dared tried to shoot you from behind. He was fiercely loyal to everyone he considered a friend, and gentle to those that he didn't know.

In a small sentence. Duo Maxwell was an amazing person. Heero wondered what would make him neglect this wonderful creature and scowled at his own reasoning. He couldn't hide behind the soldier anymore. Duo worked so hard with him to get him out of that state of mind, and he wasn't going to let the other's hard work just fade away because something like this had happened to them. No, he was going to hang on for just a little while longer.

Heero moved his arm, slinging it around Duo's shoulders before he tightened his grip on him, bringing him closer and kissing his head, "Never again… I swear it, Duo. I'll do anything I can to make sure that you are as happy as you should be."

"Why does that sound like it would be more against me than for me?" Duo asked, frowning softly as he nuzzled into Heero's shoulder.

Heero chuckled as he pet his hair softly, making a soft noise as he nuzzled his head, "I promise. It'll be the best thing you could've ever gotten."

"Better than those chocolates on Valentine's Day?" Duo asked.

"Better." Heero muttered softly.

"Better than our first kiss? Better than the first time we made love? Better than the first time you told me that you loved me?"

"… No." Heero grunted after a few seconds, smiling as Duo laughed into his shoulder.

"Am I pushing my luck?" Duo purred softly.

"You have no idea." Heero grunted before he messaged the other's shoulders gently.

Duo smiled as he purred under the touches, leaning into them, slowly starting to relax before he tensed, a small cough racking his body before he pressed his mouth to the sleeve of his ugly grey shirt and dismissed it as a patch of inhaled dust in the air. Even Heero dismissed it as nothing since it didn't sound wet or harmful.

"Don't you get sick." Heero warned.

"Che… I don't get sick, you know that." Duo said, sounding offended that Heero would even suggest it.

"Good…" Heero muttered.

* * *

What's everyone thinking now? Probably of many ways to kill me. XDDD Anyways. Enjoy.


End file.
